Animal Crackers
by Irony-chan
Summary: As complete as it's going to get. How might the 'Fruits Basket' storyline have been different if it had been written by an American author? Click to find out... if you dare!
1. Volume 1: Page 1

Author's Note: This was loosely inspired by a story that's on here somewhere with number 879923 and professes to be 'the Ranma world set in America'. I read it and it was okay, but I wasn't sure what the point of writing it was, since all it changed was the characters' names. I figured hey, I can do better than that... so here's where I'll try.  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 1:** _Page 1 – Eviction Notice_  
  
The worst day of Toria's life began like any other; her clock radio went off at 7 AM, jarring her out of a perfectly good dream and into the reality of a freezing cold room and the wailing voice of some pseudo-punk singer she couldn't be bothered to remember the name of. She hit the snooze button, rolled over, and pulled the blankets up around her, intending to doze for a few minutes before getting up. The springs in her ancient mattress creaking unhappily as she wiggled around, trying to get comfortable.  
  
Two and a half minutes later, she was jolted awake for a second time, as somebody knocked violently on the door of her trailer.  
  
"Henderson!" shouted the Landlord. "It's Monday! Let's see some money!"  
  
Toria sat up sharply and shook her head hard. It was only 7:03 AM! What in the world did he want this early in the morning? It _couldn't_ be the rent. She'd talked to him about that only yesterday, and he'd given her until the end of the week.  
  
"_Henderson_!" he repeated, pounding harder. Toria winced as she imagined the flimsy door giving way under his fist.  
  
"Okay!" she called, pushing the blankets back and scrambling to her feet. How in the world did her bedroom floor manage to be ice-cold right through the rug? It was an old and moth-eaten rug, yes, but it ought to hold _some_ warmth. "I'm coming, just a sec!" She found a pair of socks, and pulled a hoodie on over her pajamas. "I'm coming, honest! Please don't break the door!"  
  
She zipped up the front of her sweatshirt and ran to the front door. The morning sun was shining directly on the front of the trailer, and it was painfully bright in her eyes, but they adjusted after a moment and there was the Landlord – a short, skinny, unshaved man in his usual trappings of lumberjack shirt, sunglasses, and an inch-long cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth.  
  
"See? Here I am," said Toria.  
  
He nodded curtly. "Great. Where's your rent?"  
  
Toria felt her insides twist in sudden panic. "My rent?" she repeated blankly.  
  
"Yeah," he said. "As in the three hundred bucks you owe me? Where is it?"  
  
"You said I had until Friday."  
  
"Something came up," the Landlord replied. "I've got debts I need to pay, too, y'know. Got anything for me?"  
  
Toria shook her head. "No, we talked about this yesterday, remember?" she asked, trying hard to keep down an urge to panic. She felt like she'd spent the entire last week on the verge of panic and she needed to get it under control. "I don't get my paycheque until Friday! I can't pay you until then."  
  
"I need it now."  
  
"But I don't _have_ it now!" Toria protested.  
  
The Landlord look his cigarette out of his mouth and knocked a bit of ash off the end, but not enough to visibly shorten it. His cigarettes represented one of the great mysteries of the universe to Toria; somehow, they were _always_ an inch long. She'd never seen him light a fresh one, or throw an old one away. The only reasonable conclusion she'd been able to draw was that he'd found a place that sold inch-long, pre-smoked cigarettes.  
  
"Nothing?" he asked. "I'll take an installment."  
  
"I have _nothing_," said Toria. "Honest, I'm completely broke. I think I might have a few dollars in my purse, but that's it."  
  
He nodded. "Fine then... scat."  
  
Toria blinked. "What?"  
  
"Scat," he repeated, pointing with a thumb towards the road. "I'm tired of you being late with your payments. Grab your junk and get, and I can rent this place to somebody who'll pay for it."  
  
"No, wait!" said Toria. He couldn't have just said that. There was no way... this had to be a bad dream! She'd been having a little trouble keeping up with the stuff she needed to pay for, and he'd _threatened_ to evict her, but he couldn't actually be _doing_ it. Nobody was that heartless! "You can't just order me out!"  
  
"Well, guess what, kid," he said. "I just did. I'm not supposed to be renting to minors to begin with."  
  
"But..." She stopped and took a deep breath so that she wouldn't burst into tears; Toria _hated_ crying in front of other people. "I'm really sorry I've been late! I'm _trying_ to keep up! You said you'd let me stay the rest of the week. I can give you the money on Friday."  
  
"Sorry doesn't feed my dog," said the Landlord. "Pay or go."  
  
"Well, what about my deposit?" she asked desperately.  
  
"I'll consider _that_ to be last month's rent," he replied. "Are you leaving, or are we going to stand here and argue about it all day?"  
  
"You want me to go _now_?" Toria couldn't believe what she was hearing.  
  
The Landlord rolled his eyes. "No, tomorrow! Yes, now! As soon as possible."  
  
"But can't I at least take a shower?" she begged. "I'm not even dressed! What about breakfast?"  
  
For a moment, she was actually afraid he was going to say no, but he looked at his watch and said, "fine. You've got an hour, and then I want you out. Hurry up."  
  
"Yes, sir," sighed Toria, defeated.  
  
"You can swing by my office and turn in your key when you go," said the Landlord. "Don't be late."  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"Good. I'll see you at eight." The landlord caused a minor disruption in the space-time continuum by dropping his cigarette on Toria's front porch and stepping on it, then turned and walked away without so much as a goodbye.  
  
"Yes, sir," said Toria, though he was out of earshot, and shut the door.  
  


* * *

  
It was, in fact, only 7:40 when Toria dutifully handed in her key and left the trailer park, lugging along two green garbage bags full of what she was trying not to think of as her 'worldly possessions.' Thinking of this as 'leaving home with all her worldly possessions on her back' was just stupid. She was 'getting the hell out of that dump and taking her stuff with her,' thank you very much, goodbye, goodnight, and good riddance.  
  
Which only left the question of where she was going to go now.  
  
She would have to make a stop on the way to school and buy a newspaper. The classifieds would probably have something affordable... it was amazing how little you could get away with paying for a place when you were past caring about exactly what kind of a hole it was. After four months, even that filthy little trailer had started to feel like home, and it was hard to imagine anyplace that could actually be worse.  
  
Unfortunately, it was also hard to imagine a place that would let her stay, even for a few days, without making a deposit, and she wasn't going to be able to afford to do so until Friday. Toria's supervisor liked her and tried to be lenient, but had made it clear that she absolutely could not give anyone any part of their salary until payday.  
  
So what could she do until then? Perhaps she could find someplace at school to hole up for a few nights? But the building was locked in the evenings, and she needed to get in and out in order to go to work. That wouldn't do. Nor could she stay at work; the security people were always checking places to clear out drunkards and bums.  
  
The thought occurred to her that if worst came to worst she could always ask her friends for help... but there was something in her that rebelled violently at that idea. Worst hadn't come to worst _yet_. When Toria had been living with her mother, they'd gone through periods when Mrs. Henderson was out of work. They'd had loans called in and things taken away from them, but they'd always managed somehow. What would she have said in this situation?  
  
She'd have said what she always said, of course: "think positive, baby. We'll pull through." And they had.  
  
Well, what was the positive here? Not having to go back to the trailer park or deal with the Landlord again, those were definitely pluses... as was the fact that Toria had a good twelve hours before she'd actually _have_ to find somewhere to go. In the mean time, she had first school and then work, both of which represented a roof over her head and place to keep her things for a while... and the entire day to figure out what she was going to do.  
  
With these cheering thoughts in mind, Toria made a detour to the convenience store and spent the last of her money on a paper. That was another positive, she decided... since it was so early, there'd be nobody much at school and she could read the classifieds without having to worry about anybody asking her what she was doing.  
  
That was the spirit! Think positive, and pull through... and Toria meant to do exactly that! 


	2. Volume 1: Page 2

**VOLUME ONE** – _Page Two; At School_  
  
There was another good thing about Toria's being obliged to arrive early at school; it meant that there weren't a lot of people around to stare at her as she lugged her belongings up the steps. The bags seemed a lot heavier on the stairs than they had on the street, and dragging them along through the crowd that hung out in front of the building before classes began would have been absolutely mortifying. Before eight AM on a Monday, though, there would be nobody in the school except for the staff.  
  
Oh, right... and the senior boys' basketball team.  
  
When Toria reached the end of the main hallway and turned to head down the smaller hall that led to her locker, she discovered the way blocked by fifteen boys in sweaty tank tops and shorts. They were milling aimlessly around the hall, talking and joking with each other while they tried to keep out of the way of a slowly expanding puddle of water seeping out from under the gymnasium doors.  
  
Toria swallowed. "Um... excuse me," she said, reaching to tap the nearest boy on the shoulder.  
  
His reaction was unexpected, to say the least; before she could touch him, he whirled around and slapped her hand sharply away. Toria stepped back, startled.  
  
"I'm sorry!" she said. What had she done wrong?  
  
"Oh, no, it's all right!" replied the boy, holding up his hands in apology. He was wearing gloves on both hands; not the fingerless, open-backed bicycling gloves Toria had sometimes seen boys wearing, but proper gloves that covered his hands entirely. "I'm the one who should be sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." He smiled sheepishly. "I just have this thing about people invading my personal space."  
  
Toria glanced around at all the boys crammed together in the narrow hall, but kept a tight lid on the urge to say anything aloud. She had no right to pass judgment on other people. "It's okay," she said. "I'm sorry, too, I didn't know."  
  
The boy nodded, looking relieved, but he took a small step back from her. He was moderately good-looking, with big, dark eyes and lashes some of the girls she knew would have killed for, but he had – and she had to look twice to make sure she wasn't imagining it – gray hair. Not ash-brown, but actually steel gray, a colour most heads of hair didn't turn until their owners reached middle age.  
  
"It's no problem," he said, as Toria realized she was staring and quickly looked away. "Did you want something?"  
  
"Yeah." Toria pointed down the hallway. "I need to get to my locker."  
  
"Oh." He stepped out of the way. "Sorry."  
  
"It's okay," she said again, and didn't look up as she passed him and made her way through the crowd, carrying her bags over her shoulder. _Please,_ she prayed silently, _don't ask me what's in them. Don't ask me what's in them._  
  
Thankfully, none of the boys did, nor did any of them offer to help her. They just hung around, watching and snickering, as she waded through the expanding puddle – it appeared that the locker room had flooded again and the water was finding its way out through the gym – and stuffed her things into her locker. It took some effort to cram both bags into the small space, but she managed it and locked the door.  
  
"What's she got in there?" one of the boys wondered aloud. "Dead bodies?"  
  
"More likely last week's wardrobe," another one laughed. "She's probably just like my sister – can't stand wearing the same outfit twice!"  
  
"Hey," said the voice of the gray-haired boy. "Give her a break. It's probably an art project or something. Right?" he asked. "I'll bet it's Laughlin's stupid 'garbage sculpture' unit, right?"  
  
"Something like that," said Toria. "Excuse me, please. I need to be somewhere." She stuffed her jacket into her backpack, picked up her books, and left without meeting anyone's eyes.  
  


* * *

  
When the first period began at nine, Toria was already in the classroom, busy going through the classifieds and marking promising-looking ads with a highlighter. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she didn't realize other people had started to arrive until a voice next to her ear said, "are you feeling all right?"  
  
Toria yelped and nearly jumped out of her seat. "Don't scare me like that!" she exclaimed.  
  
"I'm sorry," said Hannah Sachs, straightening up. "But your aura looks terrible this morning. Have you been getting enough sleep?"  
  
"I'm fine," Toria quickly folded up her newspaper. "How are you?"  
  
"Oh, I'm all right." Hannah sat down in the desk on Toria's left. "Did you..."  
  
"Are you still fighting with your dad?" Toria interrupted, cutting off whatever question her friend had been about to ask.  
  
Hannah shook her head and smiled. "No. I told him what you said, about my needing to express myself. I'm not sure he believes that clothing counts as an art form, but he's stopped lecturing me about it."  
  
Toria smiled. If anybody's clothes could be considered an art form, Hannah's could... most of them wouldn't have been out of place at a Hallowe'en party. The dress she was wearing today was black lace and sanguine velvet, with a lace-up front and a lot of frills down the back of the skirt. Combined with Hannah's straight dark hair and sallow skin, she looked as if she were going to be the guest of honour at a witch burning.  
  
"We should do something this weekend," said Hannah. "Don't you think? We've barely seen you all summer."  
  
"Sorry," Toria looked away. "I've been working... my aunt's charging me rent, you know." She kept her eyes resolutely on her feet for the duration of this sentence. If she'd told her friends she had nowhere to go, they'd have insisted that she stay with one of them... but Unity's parents were out of work, and Hannah's family was five people crammed into a tiny apartment. She would only be a burden on them if she accepted their hospitality, so she'd told them she was living with an aunt.  
  
"I remember," said Hannah, "but it can't be _that_ much, can it?"  
  
"I'm okay," Toria told her, then quickly covered her mouth as a sudden coughing fit came on. Not again! She thought she'd gotten _rid_ of that stupid cough!  
  
Hannah patiently waited until Toria had finished coughing, then shook her head. "You're not okay, Toria... you're overtiring yourself again. You really are... your aura's lower than I've ever seen it."  
  
"I'm fine, honest!" Toria finished coughing and wiped her runny eyes on her sleeve. "I'd love to do something this weekend, but I really can't... I haven't got any money. I was late on my last rent payment and my aunt was a little mad at me. Maybe next time I get paid, okay?"  
  
"What was that?" asked a third voice, as Unity Harris sat down on Toria's other side. Toria's two best friends were about as different from each other as it was possible to be; where Hannah was petite, pale, and spacy, Unity was tall, tanned, and completely down to earth. "Are you okay, Toria?" she asked. "You look like hell."  
  
"Gosh, thanks," grumbled Toria. "I'm fine. I already told Hannah I'm fine. I'm sleeping eight hours a night and eating three meals a day, and you two need to stop clucking over me."  
  
"Toria was just telling me that she can't come with us this weekend," said Hannah. "She says she has no money."  
  
Unity shook her head. "I can loan you money, Toria."  
  
"No, that's fine," Toria said. "I couldn't. I don't know when I'd be able to pay you back."  
  
"Doesn't your aunt let you have any spending money?" Unity wanted to know.  
  
"I like to earn my _own_ money. Really, I'm okay," Toria repeated. "You two go have fun this weekend. I'll be fine."  
  
"If you say so," said Unity, but she didn't look convinced. "What in the world do you find to spend your money on?"  
  
Toria shrugged. "Stuff," she said. Like food... and clothes... and toilet paper. She braced herself for one or the other to ask her what _kind_ of stuff, but she was, quite literally, saved by the bell. It chose just that moment to go off, interrupting several conversations besides Toria's. The teacher stood up and rapped on the desk with his knuckles for attention.  
  
"Good morning, class," he said, to the tune of general groans. "Happy Monday. If you'd all please settle down, we'll take attendance." He opened the binder on his desk and began calling out names. "David Abbot?"  
  
"Here," said a bored voice from someplace in the back.  
  
Toria rested her chin on her hands while the teacher continued with the roll call, and glanced down at the newspaper she'd stuffed into her bag. She would have to find the time today to call the people who'd listed the vacant apartments and find out if any of them would be willing to let her put off paying her deposit until Friday. Perhaps if she offered to pay a little extra to compensate...  
  
"Unity Harris?" called the teacher.  
  
"Here," said Unity.  
  
He nodded. "Victoria Henderson?"  
  
"Here," Toria replied. Maybe she could do the phoning at lunch hour. She'd tell Unity and Hannah that she had to study and didn't want to be disturbed, and use the phone in the library office; the librarians were almost never in there, especially at lunch, so a careful student could generally steal up to 15 minutes of phone time before being caught. She would just have to be quiet and make the calls as quickly as possible.  
  
"Hannah Sachs?"  
  
"Present, sir."  
  
"Kyle Somers?"  
  
Silence.  
  
The teacher sighed theatrically. "Does anybody know where Kyle is _this_ time?" wanted to know.  
  
More silence.  
  
"As usual," he muttered, writing something in his binder. "Donna Southern?"  
  
Toria reached into her bag for her textbook. That was set, then... she could worry about it at lunchtime. For now, she'd better concentrate on school. 


	3. Volume 1: Page 3

**VOLUME ONE** – _Page Three; Luke Somers_  
  
Toria noticed the gray-haired boy again at lunch. He was still hanging out with the rest of the basketball team, chatting and laughing with them... besides his hair, he seemed to be perfectly normal.  
  
Or was he? When Toria looked again, she realized that he wasn't dressed like the others. It was an unseasonably warm September day; most of the boys were in t-shirts and Birkenstocks, but the gray-haired one was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers, and his hands were still covered by gloves. Why would he dress like that? Didn't he get too warm?  
  
"What did you get for problem four?" asked Hannah.  
  
"Two-thirds pi radians," replied Unity. "It's about two point oh nine four."  
  
"Good. That's my answer, too." Hannah nodded. "Toria, what about you?"  
  
"Hmm?" Toria looked back at her friends. "Sorry, what was that?"  
  
Unity frowned and closed her textbook. "Toria, is there something on your mind?" she asked. "You're a million miles away. What's the matter?"  
  
"It's nothing," said Toria, taking a sip of water to try to quiet a persistent tickle in her throat – there was another coughing fit coming on at any moment. "Just... um..." she had to say something, if only to make them stop asking. "It's just... a boy hit me this morning."  
  
"What?!" Unity leaned forward, knocking her soda can over in the process; Diet Pepsi spilled out across the cafeteria table, but Unity completely ignored this. "Somebody _hit_ you?"  
  
"Not hard!" Toria replied quickly. "Just... well, I needed to get into my locker, and he was standing in front of it, so I went to touch him on the shoulder to ask him to move" – she mimed the motion with one hand – "and he turned around and pushed my hand away. He said he didn't like people getting in his personal space."  
  
This seemed to mean something to Unity that it didn't to Toria; the taller girl's eyes widened in comprehension and she sat down again, nodding as if that explained everything. "Let me guess," she said, righting her soda and pulling a wad of Kleenexes out of her purse to start mopping up the mess. "Luke Somers, right?"  
  
"Who?" asked Toria.  
  
"Luke Somers," Unity repeated. "Skinny guy, kind of pretty, premature gray?"  
  
Toria nodded and joined in the cleanup effort; the spilled cola was getting dangerously close to dripping off the edge of the table. "That was him," she said. "Somers? Is he related to Kyle?"  
  
"Don't ask me." Unity shrugged. "How long has it been since Kyle showed up? I don't think I even remember what the little creep _looks_ like. But Luke was in a couple of my classes last year."  
  
"You mean the _last_ time you were in the eleventh grade," Hannah put in.  
  
"Nobody asked you," Unity told her pointedly. She threw a wad of sopping tissues in the garbage can and went on with her explanation: "Luke's got something wrong with his head," she told Toria. "He can't stand girls touching him. We went swimming in phys-ed last year, and this girl slipped on the wet tile and tried to grab him to keep from falling, and he jumped out of the way, and she fell down and broke her wrist. The teacher was so mad she nearly had him suspended. He wasn't allowed to come to the pool with us for the rest of the unit."  
  
"That's awful!" said Toria.  
  
"I thought so," Unity agreed. "I mean, you'd think he could overcome the stupid phobia for just two seconds, rather than..."  
  
"No, I meant him," Toria interrupted. "He couldn't have a girlfriend or anything."  
  
"Who'd want him?" Unity snorted.  
  
"That's not nice!"  
  
"It's true, though. Would _you_ want to date a guy who gets grossed out by the idea of touching you?"  
  
Hannah cocked her head as she studied the group of boys. "Which one is he?" she wanted to know. "The one in the long-sleeved jersey?"  
  
"Yes," Toria nodded. "With the gray hair."  
  
"His aura looks odd." Hannah frowned. "I've never seen one quite like it... the colours are all wrong."  
  
"Probably because he's a psycho," Unity said.  
  
"No..." Hannah shook her head thoughtfully. "I've seen psychos... his doesn't look like that."  
  
"Okay, do I _want_ to know where you've seen a psycho's aura?" asked Unity.  
  
"Probably not," replied Hannah, as tranquil as ever.  
  
Toria looked over her shoulder at Luke and frowned... a psycho? No, definitely not. When she'd spoken to him that morning, he hadn't acted as if he hated girls or found them repulsive... he just hadn't wanted her to touch him. Now Toria found herself wondering about him... what was he really like? Did his psychosis bother him? Was he lonely, or did he not like girls anyway and therefore didn't care? What about his mother... did he mind _her_ touching him? Did he have sisters?  
  
The boy sitting next to Luke poked him to get his attention, then pointed at Toria, and she quickly looked away, humiliated to have been caught staring again. Now he was going to think she liked him or something...  
  
She returned to reality to find that she'd missed several seconds of conversation between her friends. "One of these days," Unity was saying, "something is going to startle you out of that daze of yours, and I want to be there when it happens!"  
  
"I'll be sure to send you an invitation," Hannah replied.  
  
Toria shook her head. It was best not to pay attention anyway when Unity and Hannah began bickering; they didn't mean any of it, it was just that they were as opposite in temperament as they were in looks. People who didn't know them well would listen to them and swear they would have killed each other at the first opportunity, but Toria knew better.  
  
"Whatever," said Unity. She looked down at the textbook she was holding. "Where were we, anyway? We should get back to studying. Toria, what did you get for problem four?"  
  
Toria glanced at the clock; she should go now if she wanted to get those phone calls made. "Actually," she began, then found that this time she couldn't stop herself; she started coughing and then couldn't stop. By the time she was finally finished, tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to stop and pant before she could breath properly again. "Actually," she went on quickly, before either could raise the topic of her health again, "I wanted to go to the library and look at a few things on my own. There's something I really need to concentrate on. Is that okay?"  
  
"Alone?" Unity looked at Hannah.  
  
"Yes," said Toria. "Look, I'm fine, really. You two don't need to worry about me so much!"  
  
"We worry about you because you never seem to worry about _yourself_," said Unity.  
  
"And I keep telling you, you don't need to," Toria replied. "I'm just fine, I promise. I'll be in the library if you need me, okay? I'll see you in art class, okay?"  
  
"Okay," said Unity uncertainly.  
  
"All right, then!" Toria managed a reasonable approximation of a beaming smile. "Bye!"  
  
Toria went _into_ the library with fairly high hopes of finding a place to stay... and came _out_, half an hour later, in tears. As she'd anticipated, it hadn't been hard to get into the library office and make the phone calls... she'd gone down her list of ads, but not one of the people who placed them had been willing to let her stay a couple of days before making her deposit. Most of them had sounded honestly sorry about it as they explained that apartments were in demand and they really needed the money... but they still said no.  
  
She made a detour to the bathroom so that she could wash her face – she was _not_ going to class looking as if she'd been crying, thank you very much – and wondered... where did that leave her? She needed somewhere to sleep tonight and one wasn't going to magically appear. There had to be _some_ option left over...  
  
But try as she might, the only thing she could think of was that she would have to camp out somewhere until Friday. She could probably make some kind of tent out of one of her sheets, and put it up in a park somewhere, behind a stand of trees where people weren't likely to see it. That was, admittedly, not a terribly appealing idea; a park would probably also be home to bums and winos and god knew what else. But if it was the best she could do, then it was the best she could do... and she _couldn't_ ask Hannah or Unity for help. Not after she'd told them she was living with her aunt. It wasn't that they'd be angry with her for lying to them... it was that she, Toria, just didn't want to admit she couldn't do it on her own.  
  
Well, then, camping it was! After all, it was hardly as if Toria didn't _like_ camping; she and her mother had used to camp out sometimes, if they had the money, and they'd always had lots of fun. All Toria had to do was keep telling herself to think of this as an adventure!  
  
She dried her face on a paper towel and looked in the mirror... her eyes looked a little less red now. Toria always thought of her eyes as her best feature; they were a bit big in her face, and brownish-green, like her mother's. It was no longer blatantly obvious that she'd been crying... if anybody mentioned she looked funny, she could just have another coughing fit and blame it on having a cold.  
  
"Wish me luck, Mom," she whispered to the mirror, and headed off to class. 


	4. Volume 1: Page 4

**VOLUME 1:** _Page 4 – Unemployment_  
  
Naturally, on the one day out of the year when Toria wanted them to last as long as possible, her afternoon classes simply flew by. The three-thirty bell rang long before she was ready for it... it seemed to her that somebody must have been fiddling with the school clocks, because there was no way the afternoon could have passed so quickly. She'd been waiting and waiting for some brilliant idea to hit her, some magical solution to the problem of where she was going to go until Friday, but so far she'd drawn a complete blank, and now she found herself once again faced with her utter lack of possible lodgings.  
  
Well, she thought, as she gathered up her books, there was still work... that would keep her busy for a few hours, and would probably allow her more time to think than school had. Serving lattes to exhausted business travelers does not, after all, require a great deal of intellectual effort. Her shift began at five – allowing her _just_ enough time to take the bus from school to the airport – and wasn't over until eleven. That was another seven and a half hours. If she hadn't come up with something by then, there probably wasn't anything to come up with.  
  
"We'll see you tomorrow, Toria," said Hannah, waving goodbye.  
  
"Have fun at work!" Unity added.  
  
Toria laughed. "I'll do my best," she promised, "but I make no guarantees."  
  
It wasn't until she was halfway through dialing the combination into her lock that Toria realized she was going to have to take her two bags of possessions to work with her; keeping them at school would leave her with nothing to eat or wear tomorrow morning. And to make things worse, she couldn't wait until there was nobody around before leaving. If she didn't hurry, she'd miss her bus... and the hallways were full of students who would certainly wonder about – or laugh at – somebody carrying two great big garbage bags down the hall.  
  
Well, if there was nothing to be done about it, she'd better just get it over with. She pulled the bags out and put the lock back on the door.  
  
Toria kept her eyes resolutely on her toes as she walked down the hallway, carrying her things over her shoulders like Santa Claus' sacks. She could _feel_ the dozens of pairs of eyes that must be on her, and silently prayed for no one to say anything.  
  
If anybody did, Toria didn't hear it. In fact, certain as she was that everybody must be snickering at her as she passed, the first sign she got that _anyone_ was paying the slightest attention to her was when she reached to push the main door open, only to have it swing away from her, apparently of its own accord, before her hand could even touch it. She looked up, startled... and there was the gray-haired boy, Luke Somers, smiling as he held it open for her.  
  
Toria stared at him, not knowing what to say. His smile evaporated.  
  
"Sorry," he said. "I just thought you looked like you needed a hand with that."  
  
"Oh," replied Toria, then a moment later remembered her manners. "Thank you very much."  
  
"You're welcome." He held the door as she passed through, and made sure her bags were out of the way and couldn't' get caught before he let it close. "There you go."  
  
"Thanks," Toria repeated.  
  
Luke nodded. "Well... see you around," he said, and began walking away. She found herself tempted to call for him to wait, and for a tiny fraction of a second an insane fantasy ran through her mind; she shouted, he stopped, the two of them got to talking about something – it didn't matter what – Toria decided that hell with it, the world wouldn't end if she didn't go to work today, and...  
  
But in the real world, she said nothing, and he wandered off into the parking lot and was gone.  
  
Toria hung her head. She must be the biggest idiot... only _she_ could possibly develop a sudden crush on a boy she knew nothing about except that he didn't like girls. What was she _thinking_?  
  
Stupid, stupid, stupid...  
  


* * *

  
After all the disappointments she'd had so far today, Toria would not have been at all surprised if she'd arrived at the bus stop just in time to see the number nine pulling away without her. She should have known better; the bus driver and most of the regular passengers knew Toria by name, and she would have had to be _quite_ late before they would leave without her. They bus was waiting when she arrived at the stop.  
  
"Sorry!" she said, dragging her bags up the steps. "I didn't mean to keep you waiting!"  
  
"Oh, you didn't," said the driver. "Actually, I was early."  
  
"Oh, good." Toria sat down. She didn't need to show him her pass; he knew she had one, and while she technically wasn't supposed to use a student bus pass to get to work, he was willing to make an exception for her. Toria wasn't really sure she liked this. It did save her quite a bit of money every month, but she couldn't help feeling it was at least a little bit wrong, and it chewed unpleasantly at her conscience.  
  
Toria worked at the Javaworks coffee shop at the airport, serving overpriced coffee to late-night travelers for seven dollars an hour. It really wasn't enough to live on by most definitions, but Toria made do. She'd learned that from her mother; Karolyn Henderson had been very good at making do. No matter what life had thrown at her, she'd always managed to keep herself and her daughter fed, off the streets, and happy enough to enjoy each other's company.  
  
"Think positive, baby. We'll pull through." That's what Toria's mother had always said. "Things are never so bad that they can't get better."  
  
And for a while that night, things did seem to be getting better. Not only did Toria catch her bus, she arrived at work early, and was able to find a place to stash her things, change into her uniform, and be ready to start work at five minutes to five. A few minutes later, a flight got in, and the shop was hopping as two dozen Japanese businessmen, their legs stiff from sitting for hours in airplane seats, came staggering in for a dose of caffeine.  
  
Midway through the rush, Toria felt another coughing fit coming on. She managed to contain it until the last man had paid, bowed, and said _arigatou_, then had to run into the back to sit down and cough herself silly. Her nose was running by the time she was finished, and the coughing had developed a sharp, barking undertone.  
  
"Hey, Toria? Are you okay?"  
  
Toria looked up and smiled weakly at her co-worker, a plump Asian girl named Hei. "I'm fine. I'm just coming down with a cold."  
  
Hei was far happier to believe this than Unity and Hannah had been. "Okay. Hurry up and get back out here... Noura says there's a jumbo from Calgary International arriving at 'our' gate in ten minutes."  
  
As the evening passed, Toria tried very hard to think about what to do for a place to stay, but found herself too preoccupied with the time to concentrate. When the shop was busy, the clock hands seemed to move at alarming speed; when it wasn't, they appeared to stand still, and Toria alternated between coughing until her throat was on fire and trying not to fall asleep. By nine o'clock, her supervisor had reprimanded her twice for nodding off, and the owner, who was sitting at a corner table reading the newspaper, was giving her disapproving glares.  
  
It was nearly ten when Toria felt someone shaking her shoulder. She blinked and looked up from the sink full of mugs she'd been washing, and into the lean, coffee-coloured face of Noura, the evening shift's supervisor. "Wha?"  
  
Noura gave Toria's shoulder a squeeze. "Can you come and sit down with me?" she asked. "I need to talk to you."  
  
For the second time that day, Toria felt as if her insides had fallen out and hit the floor with a 'splat'. "Um... all right."  
  
"Thank you." Noura led her out into the lounge and sat down in one of the uncomfortable metal chairs. "Toria," she said quietly, "Mr. Menendez and I just had a talk about you."  
  
Toria nodded, glancing around... but Mr. Menendez, who owned the franchise, had already gone home for the evening.  
  
"I don't know how I should say this," sighed Noura. "Toria, honey, I know you're living alone, and I know you need money badly... and you haven't been a bad employee, you're punctual and you work yourself to death. But..." she shook her head. "Remember we talked to you at the beginning of September, about falling asleep on the job?"  
  
"I'm really sorry," said Toria. A lump of panic had formed in her chest and was sitting just below her breastbone, very tight and heavy. "I am, I promise it'll never happen again!" She would have to start drinking more coffee... you'd think somebody who got an employee discount on everything the Javaworks served shouldn't have trouble staying awake.  
  
"Toria!" Noura held up her hand. "I'm so sorry, I really am, but Mr. Menendez... he doesn't... he says you already had your second chance, and... I'm sorry, Toria, but he wants me to let you go."  
  
For about six seconds, Toria told herself furiously that she wouldn't cry... but then she leaned forward, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. She was barely aware of Noura rubbing her back and trying to reassure her. This was it, then... this was what rock-bottom felt like. This was the place where her mother had always said once you hit it you should celebrate, because you had nowhere left to go but up.  
  
"Should I stay the rest of my shift?" she asked tearfully.  
  
"I don't think so," said Noura. "I think you'd better head home and get some sleep." 


	5. Volume 1: Page 5

**VOLUME 1:** _Page Five - A Place to Stay_  
  
Toria didn't have the heart to tell Noura that she didn't have a home to go back to. Instead, she washed her face and changed her clothes in the tiny employee bathroom, turned in her uniform, took her two bags, and headed outside to catch the bus.  
  
_Why_ she went to wait for the bus, she really wasn't sure; after all, where was she hoping it would take her? But her timing turned out to be good. She arrived at the stop only five minutes before the number nine returned.  
  
"Hello, there, Toria," said the driver. "I thought you didn't get off until eleven."  
  
"They let me go early tonight," she replied, dragging her bags back onto the bus. It wasn't really a lie, was it?  
  
"Good." He nodded his approval. "You deserve a break."  
  
Toria couldn't answer. She sat down heavily and stared out the window, hugging her backpack tightly against her chest. The too-warm weather had gone through to its logical conclusion; there'd been clouds on the horizon all afternoon, and now they'd moved in, hanging low and heavy in the sky as they reflected the orange sodium glow of the city lights. The air was starting to smell of rain.  
  
"What do I do now, Mom?" Toria whispered to the sky, but there was no answer... not even from her memories. Beyond reminding her that things could only possibly get better from here, Toria had absolutely no idea what her mother would have said about this situation. She was sure that Karolyn _would_ have known what to do, _would_ have had some wisdom to offer that would make everything okay again... but she was utterly lost to think of what it was.  
  
The first few raindrops began to spatter on the bus windows as it pulled out of the airport station, and Toria shut her eyes. Her mother was her hero; she could not possibly imagine anybody, no matter how rich, famous, talented, or beautiful, whom she would rather be like... and knowing that she was not like her mother hurt worse than any other failure could have.  
  


* * *

  
If there was, indeed, a silver lining in any situation, then the bright side here was that on the bus Toria could fall asleep if she needed to... and she did. She rested her head against the window and let her thoughts wander, and it seemed as if she'd only been there a few moments when she heard the driver calling her name.  
  
"Toria?" he said. "Sorry, but this is your stop, isn't it?"  
  
She sat up and looked out the window... and found that she could hardly see. It was pouring; water was running down the windows in sheets, rendering the world beyond very difficult to make out. But yes, for all the good it did her this was her usual stop.  
  
"Thanks," she said to the driver.  
  
"No problemo," he replied. "Go home and rest up, kiddo."  
  
The doors creaked shut, and the bus rumbled off down the street... leaving Toria alone, homeless, penniless, and wet.  
  
She ducked into the bus shelter to get out of the rain and sat there, shivering. So what now? She had to do _something_... that much was obvious. She had to find a place to stay. But where? Not school; the building would be firmly locked up for the night by now. Not a motel; she had no money. And not Hannah's place or Unity's; they'd be more than happy to let her in, but she couldn't face having to tell them she'd lied to him. So where did that leave her?  
  
It left her right where she was – sitting on a freezing metal bench across the street from her school, coughing her lungs raw. There was nowhere else left for her to go.  
  
She wasn't really sure how long she sat there; she might even have nodded off again, because certainly it was some time later when somebody rapped on one of the bus shelter's glass walls. Toria sat up straight, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and found herself looking right into the face of a policeman who looked _exactly_ like the prime-time cop show stereotype – a bald black man at least six feet tall.  
  
"Good evening, miss," he said. "You waiting for a bus?"  
  
"Oh? Um. No," replied Toria. She stood up and grabbed her bags. "I was just... I was just leaving, actually."  
  
He nodded, but his gaze was directed at her luggage. "Not running away from home, are you?"  
  
"No, officer," said Toria. She couldn't very well run away from home when she didn't have one.  
  
"Well." The policeman looked at his watch, "it's getting on for eleven o'clock. You'd better run along."  
  
"Yes, officer." She got as firm a hold as she could on both bags and her backpack – they somehow seemed much heavier and more awkward now than they had earlier in the day – and hurried out into the pouring rain. "Good night."  
  
"Good night," he said firmly.  
  
About halfway down the block, Toria stopped and looked back over her shoulder... the policeman was still there, standing next to the bus shelter. He waved to her, so she waved back and then quickly walked away. One thing was certain; she would not be spending the night in a bus shelter.  
  
Not having anywhere to go, Toria didn't set out for any place in particular; the direction she was already headed in looked good enough, so she went that way. After all, she was already cold, broke, and soaking... she might as well be lost, too, and she didn't take long getting there. The area around the school was all suburbs and showhomes – rows and rows of huge, ugly houses that all seemed to look exactly alike, especially in the dark.  
  
She felt a little light-headed as she looked at them... for some odd reason, she didn't feel cold anymore. In fact, her jacket seemed uncomfortably warm, and she could no longer tell if it was still raining or not. Her mind was wandering oddly – she found herself wondering about the people who lived in these houses. Who were they? What were they like? Did they have champagne and caviar for lunch? Did they ever have trouble picking out which house on the street was theirs?  
  
Somewhere in the middle of this muddled train of though, Toria had an idea... and in her confused state, it seemed like a stroke of genius. The lots these houses stood on were enormous! She could probably find a place to camp out, under somebody's tree or in their garden shed, and the inhabitants would never even notice she was there!  
  
Well, that was settled, then! Problem solved! She hitched her backpack higher up her shoulders, chose the least unfriendly-looking of the houses, and marched up the driveway. A little slate path, partly overgrown by creeping jenny, led around to the back gate. The gate itself was, naturally, locked, but that was not a problem for more than a couple of seconds; someone had conveniently left a plastic garbage can on the near side of the fence, and by climbing on top of it Toria was able to reach over the gate and undo the lock.  
  
As she'd expected, the backyard was gigantic; her trailer could have fit into it many, many times over. There was a lovely big wooden deck and a swimming pool... and an adorable little garden house with a pagoda-style roof. Toria smiled when she saw it; now, _that_ was just _perfect_. It would be nice and dry inside there. She could spend the night and then be gone in the morning before whoever owned this house was even awake.  
  
Somehow, the thought of the garden house being locked didn't occur to her until her hand was already on the knob, and for a moment she was ready to panic again... but the door opened easily and she stepped inside. What she found there was an absolutely delightful little room, with wicker furniture and a braided run on the floor. Why, this was as good as staying in a fancy hotel!  
  
Very pleased indeed, Toria shut the door and started making herself at home.  
  


* * *

  
"My goodness," said Sean Somers, pulling the curtains aside to look out through the glass patio doors. "It's certainly coming down out there, isn't it?"  
  
"Mm-hm," replied Luke, who wasn't really listening. He was stretched out on the hardwood floor of the family room, trying to finish up an essay; five hundred words on the Protestant Reformation in France. He was currently on word number four hundred and sixty-six, and was wondering how much another thirty-four words were actually going to matter in the greater scheme of things.  
  
Sean glanced down at his nephew. "You know, it's a quarter after eleven. Don't you think you ought to finish that tomorrow?"  
  
"Can't," said Luke. "It's due tomorrow."  
  
"I see." Sean nodded. "And it never occurred to you to start working on it before tonight?"  
  
Luke didn't answer that. He chewed on the end of his mechanical pencil and thought... he supposed he'd better try to squeeze one more sentence in there. What could he write that wouldn't begin with the words 'in conclusion'?  
  
His uncle glanced out the window again. "You know," he remarked, "I seem to recall saying at dinner that I thought it was going to rain."  
  
"Yeah, you did," agreed Luke. Most members of the Somers family had an instinct for weather prediction. Luke himself could often do the same thing... he wasn't sure how he did it. Somehow or other, he just _knew_.  
  
"I did indeed," said Sean. "I also seem to recall asking a certain person to go outside and put the cover back on the swimming pool before the rain started."  
  
_That_ made Luke look up. "Er..." he said, glancing outside. It wasn't just raining... this was a _downpour_, and the level of water in the pool was definitely looking higher than normal.  
  
"Furthermore," Sean went on, "after I made that request, the individual in question told me that he would do what I had asked 'later', am I correct?"  
  
Luke groaned; he _had_ said that... and then completely forgotten about it. "Oh, crap," he sighed.  
  
His uncle smiled brightly. "Looks like somebody's about to get wet!" 


	6. Volume 1: Page 6

Author's Note: Since some people were curious... the Somers family, in alphabetical order: Adam, Agnes, Arthur, Christopher, Eric, Hank, Henry, Kaycee, Kyle, Luke, Lynn, Mallory, Richard, and Sean.  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 1:** _Page 6 – Discovered_  
  
Under his uncle's watchful eyes, Luke slid the patio door open far enough to stick his head out. He'd heard the expression 'sheets of rain' before, but had never quite been able to picture what that would look like. Now he thought he knew: 'sheets' were what you got when it was raining so heavily that the water overwhelmed the eavestrough and went cascading down the side of the house in a miniature waterfall. Even just stepped out the door into this was going to get him good and soaked.  
  
"Please hurry," said Sean. "You're letting in cold air."  
  
"Right, right," Luke grumbled. He put up the hood of his sweatshirt, took a deep breath, and ran out into the backyard.  
  
There were probably ways he could have gotten wetter, faster – he could, for example, have jumped into a lake – but not very many. In the few seconds it took him to cross the deck and patio and get to the rolled-up pool cover, his sweatshirt got noticeably damp and heavy, and his hair started to stick to his neck. He squatted down next to the ratchet system and fumbled with the catch, his fingers slipping and sliding on the cold, wet metal.  
  
It seemed to take ages, although it was really less than a minute, before he managed to get a grip on the thing and unlock it. He wiped his by now sopping hair out of his eyes, gripped the handle, and tried to turn it... only to find that, naturally, it was stuck. Luke cursed and pulled harder, but to no avail; it refused to move.  
  
Damn! Out of all the nights this could have happened on, _why_ did it have to be the one when it was pouring rain? He gritted his teeth and braced his feet against the place where the bricks of the patio met the tile of the pool, then yanked on the handle just as hard as he could.  
  
Suddenly, something went 'snap' and it came loose, and Luke nearly lost his balance. He tried to stand up, flailing his arms in circles to try and keep from toppling over backwards. And it worked in a way; he did not fall on his backside. Instead, he pitched over forwards... right into the pool.  
  
He came up choking and sputtering, blinking water out of his eyes... and the first thing he saw when they'd cleared was Uncle Sean, who had been watching through the patio doors and was now holding his stomach, doubled up with laughter. Murderous thoughts ran through Luke's head as he wallowed over to the ladder and climbed out. Nice to know he could count on his family in a crisis – they would always be there to laugh at his misfortune!  
  
He ducked under the eaves of the garden house and pulled his sweatshirt off to try to wring some of the water out of it. Not that this was exactly going to do him any good – he would only get wet again when he stepped back out into the rain. Since he was already as wet as he could possibly get, he probably ought to just finish what he'd started and worry about drying off (and doing horrible things to his uncle) when he got back in doors.  
  
Luke dropped his water-logged sweatshirt on the ground, where it landed with a heavy 'splat', and rolled up his sleeves... then stopped short as, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a light on inside the garden house.  
  
It wasn't a _bright_ light – neither he nor Uncle Sean had been able to see it from indoors – but it was definitely there, and while he might have left the cover off the pool, Luke was _positive_ he couldn't have left the garden house light on. He hadn't even been in there today... and this wasn't bright enough to be the overhead light on the ceiling fan.  
  
The shutters were locked and couldn't be opened from the outside, so Luke took hold of the door handle and, very slowly so that nothing would click, turned it. The door swung open, and a moment later, so did Luke's mouth. There was a homeless person sleeping in the garden house!  
  
It was a girl, with long, straight brown hair, and she was lying curled up under a blanket in the middle of the braided rug, wet and shaking. The light was coming from a flashlight, which she'd apparently turned on and sat next to her so that she could read the textbook she was now using as a pillow. Two garbage bags, one full and the other half-empty, had been stashed in the wicker armchairs.  
  
Luke's first thought was to call the police, but then he noticed the garbage bags and looked again. Surely it wasn't... it _couldn't_ be...  
  
... it was. The bag girl from school. He swallowed. "Um. Miss?" he asked. She didn't move. "Hey... uh... girl?" Luke reached to shake her shoulder, then withdrew his hand in a hurry – bad idea! He didn't have any gloves on and she was wearing a sleeveless top. It would be too easy for his hand to slip. "Girl!" he insisted. "Hey! Wake up!"  
  
The girl shuddered under her blanket and opened her eyes. She started to raise her head and look at him, but before she got there she stopped short and covered her mouth with both hands as she went into a painful-sounding spasm of coughing. Luke backed away, terrified... this girl was sick! She needed help! But what was she doing in the garden house? And what...  
  
She moaned and pulled the blankets tightly around her. "Mommy?" she whimpered. "Mommy? Where are you? _Mommy_!"  
  
Luke decided that questions could wait. He turned around and ran back inside, right past his startled uncle and down the hall to the front closet.  
  
"Luke?" asked Sean. "What in the world are you doing?" "Where are my gloves?" Luke asked, sorting madly through the basket in the closet. He'd taken them off when he got home from school... where had he put them?  
  
Sean's head appeared around the corner. "What did you find in the garden house?" he wanted to know.  
  
"Aha!" Luke exclaimed, pulling the gloves out of his jacket pocket. He put them on, shoved his arms through the sleeves of the jacket and zipped up the front. That was much better... no bare skin. "I'll be right back," he promised.  
  


* * *

  
_The emergency room was harshly lit and full of strangers; an alien and intimidating place that was far too much for a frightened child to take in. The girl weeping in her mother's arms remembered it later only as a blur of sterile whites and budgie-greens, and the sharp, stinging scent of disinfectant. The only thing that seemed real in this horrible place was the presence of her mother; warm, reassuring arms in a dark green sweater, the soft smells of soap and hand lotion, and a gentle voice, whispering reassurances in her ear.  
  
"It hurts, Mommy," whimpered the child, swallowing a mouthful of hot, salty tears.  
  
"I know it does," said Karolyn. She stroked her daughter's sleek brown hair, and held the small body tightly against her. "I know it does, but it'll heal, baby. It'll get better."  
  
Six-year-old Toria buried her face in her mother's sleeve. "Why do bad things always happen to us?" she asked miserably.  
  
"I don't know," said Karolyn. "But they have to happen to somebody... at least if they happen to _you_, that means there's someone else out there who _didn't_ have to fall down and break her arm today. That's something, don't you think?"  
  
Toria shook her head. "I'd rather it happened to somebody else! How come it was _me_?"  
  
"Hmm..." Karolyn thought for a moment. "Toria, darling... do you want to know a secret?"  
  
"A secret?" Toria looked up, green-brown eyes brimming with tears.  
  
"Mm-hm." Karolyn nodded. "My mother told it to me once; the secret is that God never gives us more burdens than we can bear. So if bad things happen to you, Toria, it's because God knows that you're really strong, and that you'll be okay in the end. It may not feel that way now, but it's true. Soon you'll be all better and you'll be climbing the monkey bars again."  
  
"No, I won't," said Toria. "I'm never going to climb them again."  
  
"Sure, you will. We'll make a special trip," said Karolyn, "and this time, you'll climb right to the top without falling."  
  
Toria didn't believe her. "But what if I _do_ fall?" she asked.  
  
"Then I'll be there," Karolyn promised. "I'll be right there to catch you, baby. Don't you ever worry."_  
  


* * *

  
Toria opened her eyes to a blur not unlike her memory of the hospital – white and beige that didn't seem to make up any actual shapes. The colours, or lack of them, wavered a moment, then focused into a bare white wall with a poster on it that outlined in rather morbid detail the consequences of smoking cigarettes. Toria blinked... where was she? She felt awful... it was as if her head had been pumped full of helium and was about to float away.  
  
"... utterly exhausted, besides," a woman's voice was saying. "How could you have waited this long to take her to a doctor?"  
  
"She kept saying she was fine," replied a boy.  
  
"Well, _you_ should have known better than to believe her," the woman told him sourly.  
  
Toria turned her head – slowly, because the slightest movement made her terribly dizzy. She was lying on a narrow, uncomfortable cot with a paper sheet over her, and now found herself looking at the back of a very fat, bottle-blonde woman in a white coat. Was she at the hospital? How had she gotten there?  
  
"I want you to keep her home from school at least a week," said the woman, "until that cough is gone. You can pick up this prescription at the pharmacy downstairs, and give her lots of fluids – water is best. Apple juice will do. And call me right away if she gets any worse."  
  
"Of course," said a man... a different voice from the boy who'd spoken a moment ago. "Thank you very much, Dr... Wilson, right? Dr. Wilson."  
  
"You're welcome," said the woman. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Somers, I have other patients to see." She walked away, leaving Toria in the company of a tall man with short dark hair, and the gray-haired boy from school – Luke Somers. 


	7. Volume 1: Page 7

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait... I'd've updated this earlier, but the Pit of Voles decided to rag on me for posting filk and took away my access for a week.  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 1:** _Page 7 – Going Home_  
  
The dark-haired man stood up and stretched. "Well," he said, "Luke, why don't you run down to the pharmacy and grab that prescription? I'll take our new friend out to the car."  
  
Luke nodded – for some reason, this suggestion seemed to come as a relief to him. "Sure!" he said, taking the slip of paper from the older man's hand. "I'll meet you in the parking lot."  
  
"We'll wait for you outside the front doors, then," the man replied. "And try to hurry. It's nearly one in the morning and I really would appreciate getting _some_ sleep tonight."  
  
"I'll do my best, Uncle Sean," Luke promised, sounding doubtful. He stuffed the prescription in his pocket and left the room, and the man named Sean reached for Toria.  
  
"Wait!" she protested – or tried to. It came out as a hoarse croak instead of a word, and when she tried to sit up she became so dizzy that she couldn't even remember lying down again. Her vision went all watery again, and when it cleared she was lying curled on her side, holding her aching stomach muscles as she coughed and coughed unable to stop. "Wait!" she managed to gasp out.  
  
Sean rubbed her back. "It's all right," he said. "We're just going to take you home."  
  
"Can't I stay here?" asked Toria, pulling on her ears in an attempt to stop them ringing. Spending the night on an uncomfortable cot in the cold, funny-smelling hospital wouldn't be much fun, but it was infinitely better than being out in the rain with nowhere to sleep at all.  
  
"Well... I _suppose_ you could," said Sean. "But why would you want to do that when you could sleep in a nice, soft bed at home?"  
  
Toria covered her face as humiliated tears welled up... why, oh _why_, did he have to say that? "I don't _have_ a nice soft bed at home!" she moaned. "I haven't got a home or a job or any money or anything!"  
  
"I see." Sean nodded gravely. "Well, fortunately for you, we have soft beds to spare." He slipped his arms under Toria's shoulders and knees, and lifted her off the bed. "Tomorrow morning I will want to know who you are and how you ended up in my garden house, but I think we can leave that until after you've had a good night's sleep and a dose of antibiotics."  
  
There was just a tiny bit of rebellion left in Toria – one small corner of her where a voice was insisting that she could not possibly accept hospitality from a complete stranger – but she was past the point where it could make her argue. God, how long had it been since she'd slept in a proper bed? Months, easily... her 'bed' in the trailer had been nothing but a mattress on the floor.  
  
So she made no attempt to resist as Sean picked her up and carried her out to his car. Even its back seat was a much better place to sleep than the hospital or the garden house, and she dozed there while they waited for Luke to return with her medicine. Drugs were expensive, she thought sleepily. When she got another job, she would have to repay them.  
  
She must have been asleep by the time Luke came back, because she didn't remember him getting in the car. In fact, Toria recalled very little of the ride home... all she knew was that at the end of it, she was carried down a hallway and... oh, and put into a big bed with fluffy pillows and a wonderful warm duvet! She would have been asleep before her head hit the pillow, except that Sean gave her a gentle shake.  
  
"Don't fall asleep just yet," he told her. "You've got to take your medicine."  
  
It was a struggle, but she managed to stay awake while he poured out a spoonful of thick yellow syrup that turned out to be banana-flavoured. She choked it down and returned the spoon, then lay down again and shut her eyes.  
  
There could not have been any more comfortable bed in the world.  
  


* * *

  
Shortly before she woke up, Toria found herself dreaming that she was at a rock concert. The music was incredibly loud – the floor was vibrating and most of the audience was covering their ears, but none of the musicians seemed to have noticed yet. The drummer certainly hadn't, and he was the one making most of the racket. Toria put her head under her pillow and whimpered as the volume soared... it got so loud that the lights above the stage started to shake themselves loose, and three of them dropped onto the floor one after another – thump, thump, thump!  
  
"Kyle!" a man shouted. "You want to turn that off, please? It's eight o'clock in the morning!"  
  
Eight AM? But surely it was _evening_... people didn't have concerts first thing in the...  
  
Toria woke up with a start; both the music and the thumping were real! Somebody not far away was playing John Cougar Mellencamp, with the volume turned up so high she that she could feel the bass in the bedsprings... and was accompanying it on a drum set. The three thumps had been the sound of somebody knocking on a door.  
  
"Kyle!" The voice belonged to the dark-haired man who'd brought Toria home last night – Luke's Uncle Sean. "Can you even hear me?"  
  
There was a loud 'bang' as something hit one of the drums particularly hard, then the sounds of what might have been an argument... it was difficult to tell, since Toria couldn't make out the words over the music, but at least one person was shouting. That went on for a minute or so, then the music suddenly died and a voice hollered, "there! Now get out of my room!"  
  
"I will respect your boundaries when you respect ours," Sean replied calmly. "I have nothing against music, but eight in the morning is _not_ the time for it."  
  
The only answer was a door slammed hard enough to shake the house.  
  
Toria heard footsteps approaching, and she quickly curled up and pretended to be asleep... but, as it turned out, to no avail. The door creaked open, a moment passed, and then Sean said, "sorry, but you aren't fooling anybody. If you really slept through that, I'll have to call the morgue."  
  
She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him – he was standing in the bedroom door, wearing the exact same clothes as at the hospital last night; a rather worn gray sweatshirt with the words 'US NAVY' on the front, and matching pants. Luke had called him 'uncle', but if there was any family resemblance between the two men, Toria couldn't see it... Sean's hair was black with no sign of premature gray at all, and his eyes, instead of being dark, were a rather peculiar shade of golden-yellow. The last place Toria had seen eyes like that was on the cover of _National Geographic_.  
  
His smile, however, was warm and friendly... and absolutely human. "That's better," he said. "Sorry about that... Kyle didn't realize we had a guest."  
  
"Kyle lives here, too?" asked Toria.  
  
"Occasionally," Sean replied dryly. "Along with Luke and myself. And what's your name?"  
  
"Toria Henderson." She cautiously started to sit up, and found that if she did it slowly, she didn't get nearly so dizzy. "Victoria, I mean... but everybody calls me just Toria."  
  
Sean nodded. "A pleasure, Toria Henderson. Sean Somers." He held out a hand for her to shake, but before she could take it, he seemed to change his mind and quickly pulled it back. "Well," he said, both hands behind his back, "as long as you're awake, I suppose we ought to get you some breakfast. Are you hungry?"  
  
"Yes, please," said Toria.  
  
"All right. I'll bring something up for you."  
  
"Um," said Toria. "Actually, I think I want to get up." Now that she was awake and feeling a little better, she might as well. Having to stay in bed all day would drive her crazy.  
  
Sean's eyebrows rose. "I'm not sure that's a good idea," he said. "The doctor seemed to think you were _quite_ ill."  
  
"That's only because I was out in the rain," replied Toria. "I'm feeling much better now. I am, really."  
  
"Well..." Sean still sounded doubtful. "I suppose if you think you're up to it."  
  
He stood back and watched as Toria eased herself out of bed. She was a bit wobbly on her feet at first, and had to hold on to the bed to keep herself from falling over, but after a minute or two she found her balance and was able to follow Sean down the stairs. At no point did he offer to take her hand or help her, for which she was grateful; she didn't think she could do much else right now, so she was glad that he would at least let her _walk_ on her own.   
  
"Apologies for the mess," said Sean, as they entered the cluttered kitchen. "Our housekeeper gave her notice last week."  
  
Luke was leaning on the counter, waiting for the toaster. He looked up as his uncle spoke. "You call _that_ 'giving notice'?" he asked.  
  
"Well, what would _you_ call it?" Sean wanted to know.  
  
The timer rang, and the toaster disgorged a pair of pop tarts. Luke pulled them out and put them on his plate. "She called us all freaks of nature and said that if she never saw us again, it would be too soon."  
  
"Well, I never said it was _much_ notice," Sean replied. "This is Victoria Henderson, by the way, who likes to be called Toria. Miss Henderson, this is my nephew, Luke."  
  
"Hi," said Luke.  
  
"We've met," said Toria.  
  
"Wonderful!" Sean smiled. "Now... sit down. I suppose you're too young for coffee, so I'll make you some hot chocolate, and you may tell us why you were in our backyard last night. How does that sound?"  
  
"Yes, sir," Toria replied meekly.  
  
"Good," said Sean as she sat. He opened the pantry and took out a tin of chocolate powder. "Go ahead." 


	8. Volume 1: Page 8

**VOLUME 1:** _Page 8 – The Truth Comes Out_  
  
A nervous knot formed in Toria's insides as she looked first at Sean, pouring milk into a mug for her hot chocolate, then at Luke, watching her as he broke one of his pop tarts in half. She had never liked being the centre of attention, and the idea of having to explain herself to these men seemed terrifying. What if they didn't believe what she told them? Or what if they decided that she didn't need or didn't deserve their help, and ordered her out of their house?  
  
Perhaps just out of force of habit, she found that she had a desperate desire to lie; she could tell them the story she'd told Hannah and Unity, about staying with her Aunt... and maybe the Aunt had lost her job and couldn't afford to keep Toria anymore, or maybe...   
  
She cut her imaginings off as she realized that Luke and Sean were still waiting for her to say something. What did she think she'd accomplish if she lied to them, anyway? And after all they'd done for her, it would hardly be fair, now would it?   
  
There was nothing for it, then; she would just have to hope for the best. Toria took a deep breath, and began to tell the truth.   
  
"Well," she started with. "You see, I sort of lost my trailer yesterday morning..."   
  
No, that wasn't where to begin, was it? If this was going to make any sense, she'd better start at the very beginning.   
  
She tried again. "What happened was that my... my mother died." Toria shut her eyes. After so many months, how could her chest still hurt every time she had to say that out loud? "Just after Easter, and I didn't really have anywhere to go. I don't have any relatives, really... Mom was an only child and her parents died before I was born, and my father... he... um... he left, when I was about a year old. I don't know where he is. Actually, I don't even know _who_ he is. Mom never talked about him at all."   
  
Toria paused there and risked a glance up, but got no response from either of her listeners. They just waited for her to go on. She swallowed.   
  
"So," she continued, "I... well, you see, I had a little bit of money from Mom's insurance, and the apartment we'd been living in was paid for another month already, so I thought I could just take care of myself. And I'd... I'd already been working part time at a coffee shop, so after school got out, I got a full-time job at the Javaworks up at the airport. I picked the one at the airport because they pay more. But I couldn't afford to keep paying the rent for the apartment, so I found a trailer..."   
  
She paused there and looked at her lap. In the privacy of her own head, Toria had always thought she was doing the best thing she could... but now that she was actually _talking_ about it, she was getting a horrible feeling that the decisions she'd made over the past five months had been very foolish ones.   
  
"Continue," said Sean.   
  
Doing so was an effort. "So I had a place to live and a job, and it worked okay for a while, but then the insurance money ran out in the middle of last month, and since I've been back to school I haven't been able to work as much. I got a bit behind on my rent – yesterday morning I was three weeks behind exactly – and the landlord said he'd give me until Friday but I guess he changed his mind, because he threw me out this morning. That's why I had those two bags with me at school," she added. "That's my stuff."   
  
It occurred to her to wonder what had happened to her bags and whether they were still in the garden house, but Luke answered the question before she could ask it. "Don't worry about those," he said. "I brought them inside – they're just in the front hall closet."   
  
"Thank you," said Toria.   
  
"I didn't look through them or anything," he added. "I hope everything's still there."   
  
"Thanks," she repeated. "So... anyway, so I figured I could find another place to stay, but I called every place in the paper during lunch hour – I mean, I went through the classifieds, and I called all the ones I thought I could afford, but none of them would let me stay there unless I made a deposit first, and I don't have any money. I don't get my paycheque until Friday.   
  
Almost finished. "And then, when I went to work I fell asleep. See, I can't work during the day anymore, so I've been staying late instead, but then I have to get up for school, so I've been nodding off at work... and my boss got tired of it and he f-f-f-f-fired meeeee..." up until that moment, Toria hadn't felt like she was about to cry at all, but up came the tears and she was powerless to fight them. She covered her face in humiliation.   
  
Luke pulled a Kleenex out of the box on the counter and handed it to her. She took it gratefully and blew her nose, and looked up to find Sean holding out a steaming cup of hot chocolate. "Thank you," she murmured miserably as she accepted it, but she decided that she would not take a sip until she'd finished telling her story. "S-so I took the bus back to school, and... um... well..."   
  
She hesitated as something rather troubling came to her attention. "Well... I don't think I _know_ how I got into your backyard. I don't remember what happened after I got off the bus. I think I met a policeman," she added, "but that might have been a dream. I don't know.   
  
"That's... pretty much all," she finished sheepishly, and bent her head to drink her chocolate.   
  
There was a long pause in which the only sound was the noise of the shower running upstairs, then Sean said, "I see."   
  
"You think I'm making it up, don't you?" asked Toria. "You think I'm just saying this to make you feel sorry for me."   
  
"No, we don't," said Luke, his mouth full of pop tart.   
  
"Yes, you do!" Toria hung her head even lower and grimaced with the effort of not crying. They were going to throw her out, weren't they?   
  
"No, we don't," Sean said firmly. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he was anything but serious, and when Toria looked up at him, he was smiling at her. "You'll find that this family has some unusual gifts, Miss Henderson," he said, "and one of them is that we can usually recognize a lie when we hear one. Don't worry; we believe you. So what do you intend to do now?"   
  
"I don't know," Toria admitted. She took another drink of chocolate, then set the mug down on the table. "I guess I'll have to find another job and try again." It seemed like a hopeless idea.   
  
Sean nodded slowly. "Impressive," he said. "I certainly have to admire your spirit – you don't give up for anything. But you can't worry about any of that just yet – the Doctor said you have to rest this week. So, since it looks like you don't have anywhere else to go in the mean time, you can stay here with us?"   
  
That did it – she thought she'd quelled them, but Toria just couldn't keep the tears in any longer. "I can?"   
  
"Well, you don't _have_ to if you don't want to," Sean said with a grin, "but if you _do_ want to, then I certainly won't complain." He looked at his nephew. "What about you, Luke? Do you have any problems with the idea of a pretty girl staying with us a week or so?"   
  
"Not that I can think of," Luke replied.   
  
Sean beamed. "Then that's settled! And don't worry about paying us back for our trouble, Miss Henderson. We'll work that out after you find another job. All right?"   
  
This simply _had_ to be too good to be true! Surely, any moment now Toria was going to wake up for real, and find that she was lying cold and lonely on a bus bench somewhere and all this had been only a dream. "But..." she protested. "But... but..."   
  
"Yes?" asked Sean.   
  
But Toria couldn't think of any actual objections, so she just shook her head, buried her face in the Kleenex and sobbed. It took several minutes and two more Kleenexes before she was able to speak. "Th-th-thank you," she stammered. "I really... you didn't have to..."   
  
"It's our pleasure, Miss Henderson," replied Sean. "However," he added, his tone suddenly sober again, "there _is_ one rule that you absolutely must follow for as long as you are living in this house."   
  
"What's that?" asked Toria, startled.   
  
"That you may not touch us," said Sean. "Not directly, at least – clothes are fine, hair is fine, but no skin-on-skin contact. Do you understand?"   
  
"Yes, sir." Toria nodded, although this seemed like a rather strange request. Did the whole family have a thing about touching women, then? Maybe it was hereditary or something... one of those 'recessive' problems they'd learned about it biology class, that could crop up over and over in the same family and never died out because people could 'carry' them without knowing about it. Could a psychological problem work like that, or was it actually some kind of a skin condition or something?   
  
"Wonderful," said Sean. "Now why don't you have some breakfast and take your medicine, and then we'll get you and your things upstairs and you can get some more rest. The doctor said you'd need plenty of that, and..."   
  
He stopped in mid-sentence as a series of thumps announced that one of two things was happening; either a bowling ball was bouncing down the staircase, or else Kyle was finished showering and coming downstairs for breakfast. It proved to be the latter.   
  
Toria was not very well acquainted with Kyle Somers... but then, she'd always gotten the impression that nobody really was. He seemed to be a sort of self-elected outcast, a person who went out of his way to alienate himself from teachers and classmates alike. His grades were poor, and as far as Toria could recall, he appeared to have no friends.   
  
It wasn't much on which to base an assessment of a person, but nothing in Toria's half-formed impression of Kyle changed as he came slouching into the kitchen; a tall, lanky boy with very red hair and freckles all over his face, back, and arms. He was wearing camouflage-patterned boxer shorts and some sort of small leather bag on a chain around his neck... and nothing else. His feet and torso were both bare, and the   
  
sunglasses he almost always wore at school were missing. "Well, well, well," said Sean. "The cat came back." 


	9. Volume 1: Page 9

**VOLUME 1:** _Page 9 – The Somers Secret_  
  
Whatever Sean's comment meant – and something about the way he said it suggested that it had some deeper significance than simply a play on a children's song – Kyle chose to ignore it. He walked right past the kitchen table without looking at any of the people sitting there, opened the refrigerator, and began rooting around inside of it.  
  
Sean cleared his throat. "Unfortunately," he added, "by _my_ calendar, at least, it has been several 'very next day's. Does the cat care to explain himself?"  
  
There was still no response, beyond clinks and scrapes from inside the fridge as Kyle rummaged through the contents. Toria glanced at Luke, and found him covering his mouth with one hand, snickering about something.  
  
"Kyle," said Sean, and this time there was a warning note in his voice.  
  
"Bite me," Kyle replied.  
  
Sean pretended to consider this. "No, I don't think so," he decided. "I haven't had my shots."  
  
Still ignoring him, Kyle pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and straightened up to take a drink... then caught sight of Toria. His eyes widened in surprise, and he began sputtering as his mouthful of milk went down the wrong tube.  
  
"I'm sorry!" Toria exclaimed. She stood up and, temporarily forgetting the 'don't touch' rule, reached to pat him on the back. "Are you all..."  
  
"_Don't touch me_!" he shrieked, in a choking-induced falsetto. Toria snatched her hands away, and Kyle took a couple of clumsy steps backwards, wiping his mouth on his arm. "Who the hell are you?" he asked hoarsely.  
  
"Toria," she replied, too startled to say anything more.  
  
"Miss Henderson is the guest I mentioned to you earlier," Sean put in, "perhaps you didn't hear, since you were making a terrific racket at the time. But since she _is_ our guest, I think you can be a bit more polite to her than that."  
  
Kyle thrust a furious finger at Toria's face. "She's a _girl_!"  
  
"Oh, you noticed!" Sean nodded. "Good! Perhaps there's hope for you after all."  
  
"What is she doing here?" Kyle demanded. "We don't need another girl! We just got _rid_ of the damn housekeeper!"  
  
"Ah, so that _was_ intentional?" Now Sean seemed to finally be getting annoyed. "I wondered when you vanished right after!" He took a deep breath and glanced at Toria before continuing. "But we can discuss _that_ later. Don't worry about Toria; she knows the rules. No touchie, right, Toria?" he asked with a smile.  
  
She nodded. "No touchie."  
  
Kyle wasn't amused. "She can't stay here!" he said.  
  
"Why not?" demanded Luke, bringing both fists down on the table. The dishes rattled and Toria jumped. "This isn't your house! It's Uncle Sean's house, and if he wants to let her stay here, then you just have to deal with it!"  
  
"Well, excuse the hell out of me!" Kyle shouted at him. "What was I thinking? Yeah, I should just sit here quietly and do nothing, right? _While there's a girl in our house_!"  
  
"I'm sorry," said Toria meekly, not entirely certain what she'd done wrong. But neither of the boys listened to her.  
  
Luke stood up. "If you're so worried about what goes on in this house," he snarled. "Then maybe you ought to try _living_ here for more than a week at a time, huh? Ever think of that, pussy?"  
  
"Do not _ever_ call me pussy!" raged Kyle.  
  
"Um," said Toria. She looked at Sean for help, but found none; he didn't even appear to be particularly concerned. He was sitting back in his chair, stirring a cup of coffee and not even looking at Kyle and Luke.  
  
"You don't have any brothers, do you, Miss Henderson?" he asked.  
  
"I'm an only child," she replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.  
  
"I thought as much." Sean calmly tapped his spoon on the edge of his mug, then set it down on the table. "Boys need to fight," he said. "It is in their natures... I don't think I even want to know what happens if you try to stop them from doing it. That's probably how they end up shooting up schoolyards and such things. Don't worry, it'll all be over in a minute or two."  
  
The idea of just letting two people fight was very much against Toria's nature, but there didn't seem to be much to do about it. Luke and Kyle seemed to have completely forgotten that there was anyone else in the room, and Toria rather suspected that anybody who tried to intervene was going to get hurt.  
  
"Pussy, pussy, pussy!" taunted Luke.  
  
"Shut up!" snapped Kyle.  
  
"Then quit having a hairball and apologize to Toria!"  
  
"I'll apologize to her when she's out of our house!" Kyle gave Luke a shove. Luke shoved back, and the next thing Toria knew, Kyle had hold of Luke's collar and was preparing to punch him.  
  
"Don't!" Toria decided rules could wait. She jumped to her feet and grabbed Kyle's bare arm.  
  
She honestly wasn't sure what happened next... she knew that Kyle saw her coming, because his eyes and mouth both opened wide in horror, and she knew that she'd touched him, because for just a moment, she could feel his skin against his fingers. But all that went by in a flash and then something else must have happened, because a moment later, Kyle was gone, and Toria was holding onto a very angry orange cat.  
  
Toria shrieked in surprise, and the startled cat hissed and scratched her; she dropped it, and it landed on its feet – right on top of Kyle's boxer shorts, which were now lying discarded on the floor. But... but... Toria looked around frantically. Where had Kyle gone? He had to be here somewhere... he just had to! She looked up at Luke, but he seemed to be in much the same state of shock she was.  
  
Behind Luke, Sean stood up. "Oh, dear," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Already."  
  
"W... where's Kyle?" asked Toria.  
  
Luke looked down at the cat. Toria followed his gaze – the little animal was still sitting there on Kyle's boxers, glaring up at the humans with what appeared to be great disgust.  
  
"Where's Kyle?" Toria repeated desperately. "Where did he go? He couldn't turn into a cat!" She wasn't sure if she were talking to Luke or to herself. "He couldn't! He couldn't!" Panicking, she grabbed Luke's shirt. "Where is he?"  
  
"Miss Henderson!" Sean reached for her, but Toria frantically tried to push him away... by the face. At the same moment, her knuckles brushed against the skin of Luke's neck, and then...  
  
... and then, there were suddenly a lot more empty clothes lying around on the floor... and Toria was standing there, with Luke's shirt in one hand, surrounded by an orange cat, a small grey squirrel, and a huge black dog.  
  
"Buh... buh..." she said.  
  
It was as if her brain had burnt out like a fuse – she could not respond. She couldn't even think. Now she _knew_ this was a dream... it didn't make sense any other way! People could not simply change into animals. It didn't happen!  
  
The cat arched its back and hissed at the squirrel, which promptly turned and darted up the stairs... the feline ran after it. Toria could hear the pattering of paws as they ran down the hallway, then a tree outside shook as one animal after the other leapt out one of the upstairs windows and landed in the branches. Through all this, the dog simply sat, looking at the ceiling with a very human expression of resignation.  
  
"Whuff," it sighed.  
  
Toria stumbled backwards – her head was spinning. This could not be happening... could not... absolutely could not! And 'absolutely could not' was the last coherent thought she had before the world faded out into gray, and she lost consciousness.  
  


* * *

  
She came to lying on her back on the floor, still clutching Luke's shirt and with the black dog sniffing at her face... it _was_ a dog, wasn't it? Now that she looked again, Toria wasn't so sure. The face was the wrong shape and the snout too long, and those gold eyes were somehow not very doggish...  
  
... that wasn't a dog. That was a wolf.  
  
Toria yelped and scrambled backwards. The wolf backed up, too... and then all of a sudden there was Sean Somers, on his hands and knees and absolutely naked. Toria stared... then realized what she was staring _at_, and quickly covered her eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry!" she wailed.  
  
"Quite all right," she heard Sean say. "I suppose we ought to have warned you."  
  
From outside came a pair of startled shouts, then some loud cursing in Kyle's voice... followed by a snap and a crash. Toria uncovered one eye and got up on her knees to look out the window – a large branch off the poplar tree outside had broken off and was lying on the ground, and Luke and Kyle were trying to disentangle themselves from the branches.  
  
"One of these days," Sean remarked, "those boys are going to learn not to climb trees. You can look now, Miss Henderson," he added. "I'm decent."  
  
She glanced back, and found he was just in the middle of pulling his sweatshirt over his head. Outside, the two boys had picked themselves up and were shouting at each other again... apparently oblivious to the fact that they both had no clothes on.  
  
"Um," said Toria. "What just happened?"  
  
Sean sighed. "You'd better sit down," he said. "It's rather a long story."  
  
**END VOLUME 1**

* * *

Author's note: so there it is! I don't know if I'll do any more volumes – I suspect this will get rather tiresome if I try and keep it up too much longer... but it was fun to write, and I hope you had fun reading it. ^_^ 


	10. Volume 2: Page 1

Author's Note: Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to do a Volume II, but this just kind of wrote itself. If you want something really lame, get on WinMX some evening and look up 'Animal Crackers'... I've put together kind of a 'soundtrack' for this. Hey, if I had better things to do with my time, I wouldn't be writing fanfic. ~_^  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 2:** _Page 1 - Further Explanations_  
  
Toria picked herself up and sat, carefully, back in her chair. Her head was spinning unpleasantly, but beyond that she felt curiously detached... as if this entire absurd situation were happening far, far away and she was only an observer. Maybe she was dreaming the entire thing; after all, this couldn't possibly be real, could it? People didn't just suddenly transform into animals when touched. It did not happen!  
  
She'd just _known_ this was all too good to be true.  
  
Her hands shook as she reached for her mug of chocolate, and she managed to get a hold of it only after a couple of false starts. She raised it slowly to her mouth and started to take a sip, hoping the hot liquid would calm her nerves... but just as she did, the back door hit the wall with a bang. Toria yelped, and the mug flew out of her fingers to smash on the floor.  
  
"Oh, my gosh! I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, and bent to pick up the bits. This turned out to be a mistake; all of a sudden the urge to cough, which she had been holding in ever since she woke up, decided it could not be contained a moment longer. She doubled over, gripping her aching stomach muscles.  
  
"Er... it's quite all right," said Sean. "You just sit. I'll clean that up." He opened a cupboard and took down a roll of paper towels. "Kyle!" he shouted. "_Please_ don't break the house!"  
  
Toria wiped her nose and started to look up, then quickly covered her eyes again as Kyle came stamping in to the kitchen, still completely naked. Luke was right behind him, and in a similar state of undress.  
  
"I told you so!" Kyle announced, somewhere in between triumphant and furious. "I _told_ you! She's been here, what, five minutes, and that's all it took for..."  
  
"Well, there's really not a lot we can do about it now," Sean pointed out. Toria kept her hands over her eyes so that she couldn't glance up and see anything she shouldn't, but she could tell by the sounds of clinking crockery that Sean was picking up her broken mug. "Put your clothes back on, please," he added. "I don't want to the poor girl to suffer any more emotional trauma than she already has."  
  
"She has to leave!" Kyle insisted.  
  
"It's a bit late for that now, isn't it?" asked Luke.  
  
"You shut up," Kyle told him.  
  
"Hey!" said Luke. "Do you want to take this back outside?"  
  
Toria could hear the sneer in Kyle's voice. "Oh, sure," he said. "What are you gonna do? Twitch your nose at me?"  
  
"That's enough!" barked Sean. "Now the pair of you, go and put your clothes back on, _before_ the neighbours call the police to report us for public indecency again. We will tell Miss Henderson the truth, and then if she wants to stay or go, that is up to her. Go and get dressed. Now!"  
  
There was some muffled muttering as the two boys gathered up their clothing, then the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "One of these days," Toria heard Kyle say, "I am really going to kick your ass, rat-face."  
  
"One of these days the Moon's going to fall down, too," Luke replied, "but I don't see it happening in my lifetime."  
  
Toria waited until she was certain that the only people left in the room were herself and Sean, then uncovered her eyes again to find that he'd finished collecting the bits of the broken mug, and was in the process of wiping up the spilled chocolate. "I'm sorry about that," she said quietly.  
  
"Don't worry about it," Sean told her. "Quite understandable." He stood up and patted her on the shoulder, which made her flinch for a moment, but he only touched her through the cloth of her nightshirt. "It's all right – it's only a mug. The universe will continue."  
  
She nodded meekly.  
  
Sean threw the broken mug and the towels away. "Why don't I make you another cup, then, shall I? And the doctor said you hadn't been getting enough protein in your diet, so how about some peanut butter?"  
  
"Okay," said Toria. She hesitated a moment, then burst out, "how can you be so calm?"  
  
"Because this is simply not worth panicking about," Sean replied. "Trust me, Miss Henderson... when it's _actually_ time to panic around here, you will know. This is really quite normal." He smiled. "Let's wait until the boys get back, and then we'll explain it to you; you told us your story, so I suppose it's only fair we tell you ours. All right?"  
  
"All right."  
  
By the time Luke and Kyle came back downstairs, Sean had finished fixing a second mug of chocolate and a plate of toast for Toria. She thanked him as he set it down in front of her, but found herself a bit reluctant to eat, as if she were worried that whatever had just happened to these three men was contagious. No, that was a silly idea... besides, Sean seemed like a nice man; surely he wouldn't offer her food if something like that could happen. Would he?  
  
Luke got back first, dressed again in jeans, hoodie, and jacket, and sat down to finish his pop tarts. It was tempting to say something to him, but Toria resisted; he didn't look as if he wanted to talk, and when she caught his eye, he quickly turned his head away. She dropped her gaze and took a bite of toast to distract herself.  
  
A minute or so later, Kyle entered the room, also fully clothed in the same kind of outfit he generally wore to school when he turned up; sunglasses, cargoes, and a black T-shirt. He was still wearing the little amulet; she could see the chain above the neckline of his shirt, but the bag itself was tucked under his clothing, out of sight. He didn't say anything either, but walked right past the table to the fridge and opened it to poke around at its contents again.  
  
"Ahem," Sean cleared his throat.  
  
Luke and Kyle both glanced up briefly, then returned their attention to their food.  
  
"Well, then," said Sean. "If nobody has any objections. Miss Henderson, whether you believe this or not is entirely up to you, but you did ask; the Somers family is under a curse."  
  
"A curse," Toria repeated blankly. She wasn't sure what kind of an explanation she'd been expecting... but that was probably as likely as anything else.  
  
"That's right." Sean nodded. "A curse. As I said, it's a bit of a long story... but you told us a long story you didn't seem to especially want to tell, so you may as well hear ours."  
  
Luke stuffed the rest of his pop tart in his mouth and held up a hand. "W't m m'nit," he said, mouth full. "Wait a minute. If you tell her..."  
  
"Yes?" asked Sean.  
  
His nephew hesitated a moment, then shook his head and sat back. "Never mind."  
  
Sean nodded and turned back to Toria. "Let me see now... well, the Somers family were among the first European settlers to arrive in this area. The founder of the family was a fellow called Jacques Somers; he and his wife came from somewhere in northern France – I can't remember exactly where– and founded a homestead a ways north of the city. There's a campground on the land now, actually... ever been there?"  
  
She shook her head.  
  
"Pity," said Sean. "Beautiful countryside. At any rate... the two of them were fruitful and multiplied, and made quite a bit of money off of a silver mine up there, but they got themselves into a bit of a running argument with the local Indian tribe. There was some difficulty over who owned which land that was sacred to what, and the problem seems to have simmered for thirty or forty years before Old Man Somers decided that something was going to have to be done about it."  
  
He sighed. "I wish I could speak more highly of my ancestors, but when things eventually came to a head, what happened was that Jacques Somers, his wife, his four sons, two daughters, and five of his grandsons – thirteen people in all – set out one night and attacked the Indians' village. They burned the longhouses and... well, basically massacred most of the tribe." Sean looked at the table as he said this, evidently not at all proud of his family history. "Jacques Somers himself murdered the chief and his family, and then went after some sort of tribal holy woman. Exactly who and what she was is not terribly clear, but she informed Old Man Somers that if he killed her, he and all his descendants would be cursed.  
  
"Naturally, he went ahead and did it anyway... and here we are.  
  
"When we are touched," Sean explained, "skin to skin, by a member of the opposite sex, we change into animals. After a short time, we change back. There were thirteen members of the family in the party who killed the Indians, so at any given time, there are ten men and three women in the family who carry it."  
  
Toria nodded mutely, not sure what to say. The entire story sounded... well, like something you'd read in a book. Things like that happened in stories, not for real. But she'd seen for herself what happened when she touched them... and was it really any more unbelievable than all the silly things she'd done since last May?  
  
"So, Miss Henderson," said Sean. "Now that you know, do you still want to stay here, or shall we find a foster home for you? I assure you, none of us bite... at least, I don't and Luke doesn't. Kyle I wouldn't bet money on."  
  
Kyle replied with an extremely rude gesture.  
  
"I want to stay," said Toria firmly. "I'll just have to be more careful from now on."  
  
"Wonderful!" Sean clapped his hands. "Now... I think you need to finish your breakfast and go back to bed... and certain other people," he looked at his nephews, "had better go to school." 


	11. Volume 2: Page 2

Well, my WinMX picked a fine time to die. ^_^ If you're at all interested in the silly 'soundtrack' thing, you can find song titles, artists, and lyrics here: hammer . prohosting . com / ~windcker / Remove the spaces, o'course.  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 2:** _Page 2 – Photos and Phone Calls_  
  
Toria was still to dazed to really argue, so while Kyle ate his breakfast and Luke stuffed books into his backpack, she obediently swallowed another spoonful of banana medicine and let Sean escort her back upstairs.  
  
"I ought to be home most of the day," he said, opening the guest room door for her. "If you need anything, just come and find me."   
  
"Thank you," said Toria awkwardly.   
  
"The bathroom is just at the top of the stairs," he added. "Hopefully, the boys won't have left any of their underwear on the floor... and I'll see if I can find something to cover that window for you. The sun shines right in here in the afternoon, and it gets awfully hot."   
  
"Oh, you don't have to do that," Toria protested. This man had bought her medicine, given her breakfast and a place to sleep, and he really thought she would complain about being put in a room with no blinds on the windows? "It's all right. I'm sure I'll be fine."   
  
Sean smiled. "We'll see if you're still saying that later when you start to roast. You have a good sleep... and please excuse me, now, I need to see about getting my nephews out the door."   
  
"All right. Thank you," Toria repeated.   
  
"You're very welcome," he said, and shut the door with a click.   
  
Toria sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a few minutes was unable to do anything except stare blankly at the wall. Far too much had happened for her to be able to properly take it all in. Twenty-four hours ago, she'd had a home and a job; by twelve hours ago, she'd been left with neither, and now, here she was, in a house full of boys who were very nice to her although she'd given them absolutely no reason to be... and who would change into animals if she touched them!   
  
She shut her eyes a moment and took a couple of deep breaths to try and clear her confused thoughts. For a moment, it seemed to be working... but after all the surprises she'd already suffered, it wasn't any wonder that she all but jumped out of her skin when, a few seconds later, somebody knocked on the door.   
  
"Who is it?" she asked, swallowing to assauge the tickle in her throat – she didn't want to start coughing again.   
  
"Just me." Luke opened the door and looked in. "I brought your stuff up. Where should I put it?"   
  
"Oh." Toria stood up and reached for the bags. "You don't have to... I can take them."   
  
"Don't worry, I don't mind," he assured her. "Do you want them in the closet, or where?"   
  
That was, really, a good question. She looked around... it certainly wasn't as if there was any lack of space; by her standards, this was a room big enough for a princess. "I don't know," she said. "Anywhere is good."   
  
"I'll just leave them at the end of the bed, then," said Luke. "Is that okay?"   
  
"Sure." Toria shrugged, feeling a bit guilty as she watched him bring the two bags in and put them carefully down. He didn't need to have done that – there was nothing breakable in them – but it was nice of him to have thought of it.   
  
"There you go," he said, giving her a rather weak smile. "I'll see you after school."   
  
She nodded. "Thank you."   
  
Toria turned away as he left the room, so that he wouldn't see how red she must be turning. She hoped that the 'unusual gifts' of the Somers family didn't include reading minds. They probably already thought she was a complete fool for the silly decisions she'd made this summer. How much more of a fool would Luke consider her if he knew about her brief fantasy yesterday about skipping work to spend time with him; the one boy in the school who could not possibly be interested in dating a girl. How amazingly dumb was that?   
  
To try and distract herself from her embarrassment, she looked at her bags and wondered if she ought to unpack. Her nerves were too far gone for her to feel like sleeping quite yet and it would give her something to do... but after a moment's thought she decided against it; unpacking would have been too invasive. She probably shouldn't make herself too much at home here. It wasn't as if she were planning on staying – as soon as she had a new job and a new place to live, she would just have to pack it all up again. No, her things would have to stay in the bags... except for one item.   
  
She opened the second bag and pulled out one of her winter boots. Tucked inside the left one was a knitted hat, and wrapped up inside the hat was a framed photograph of Toria's mother.   
  
Toria carefully wiped the dust off the glass with her sleeve, and then stood the photo on the nighttable, where she'd be able to see it while lying in bed. The picture had been taken last October, on School Spirit Day. Her mother had volunteered to help with the barbeque, and as part of doing so, had been obliged to wear a silly-looking sombrero to match that year's 'Mexican' theme... which had seemed like a marvellous idea until it got windy. In the photo, Karolyn was holding on to the rim of her sombrero with both hands, laughing as she tried to keep it from becoming a flying saucer.   
  
She couldn't help smiling, herself, as she crawled under the covers. Her mother's laughter had always been infectious – she'd never met anybody who could listen to it and not join in – and she could hear it so clearly in her mind. Funny to think that was almost a year ago. It felt both longer and shorter... as if it had been only yesterday, but the intervening day had taken a lifetime to go by.   
  
She pulled the covers up to her chin. "Well," she said to the picture. "Here I am, Mom... so now what happens?"   
  
There was, of course, no answer, and she wondered what her mother would have done in this situation... would _anybody_ have any idea what to do when confronted with something like this?   
  
Well, if anyone would have, it was Karolyn Henderson.   
  
Toria smiled, and shut her eyes.   
  


* * *

  
Taking Toria's things up to her had probably been a dumb thing to do, especially considering that Luke was already late when he'd stopped to do it. But when he'd opened the closet and seen the two garbage bags sitting there, he had thought he'd probably better do something with them before he left. If he didn't, she would probably come downstairs later and try to do it herself... and after she'd been so sick last night, he doubted it would be good for her to carry something heavy up a flight of stairs.   
  
Even so, doing it had made him even later, so after she said 'thank you' and he shut the bedroom door, he'd come down the stairs two at a time, grabbed his jacket and backpack, and was shoving his feet into his sneakers when he saw Uncle Sean in the living room, dialling the phone.   
  
At first he just noticed this out of the corner of his eye and then immediately returned his attention to trying to figure out which pocket he'd put his keys into... but then a horrible cold clammy feeling crept over him as he realized who it was his uncle was likely to be phoning. He looked up again with a start. Sean was leaning on the back of an armchair, drumming on the leather with his fingers while he waited for the person he'd dialled to pick up.   
  
"Hey!" exclaimed Luke.   
  
Sean glanced at him, then at the telephone. "Yes," he said into the mouthpiece, straightening up. "Hello?"   
  
"_Hey_!" Luke repeated. His Uncle showed no signs of responding, so he quickly kicked his shoes back off, dropped his backpack, crossed the living room in four long steps and pushed the hook switch.   
  
His uncle stopped in midsentence and gave him a puzzled look. "Is there a problem?"   
  
"Who are you calling?" Luke demanded.   
  
Sean did not appear to understand why this was an issue. "I'm calling the school," he replied. "Somebody needs to tell them that Miss Henderson will be out sick today. You'll probably have to give this to the office," he added, holding out a note they'd received from the doctor the previous night.   
  
Luke nearly melted from relief as he took his finger off the button. "Right," he said, taking the paper. "Sorry."   
  
"Who did you _think_ I was calling?" Sean wanted to know.   
  
"I figured you were probably calling him." Luke retrieved his bag and sat down on the landing to put his sneakers back on. "You aren't going to, are you?" he asked.   
  
"Of course I am," said Sean, dialling again.   
  
About half a second passed before this really registered. "_What_?"   
  
"I'm going to call him after I've phoned the school," Sean clarified. "He does like to know what goes on in this house."   
  
"Why?" Luke protested. "What goes on in this house is none of his business! He doesn't live here."   
  
"No, but he likes to know," said Sean. "Please don't panic. If I really thought anything horrible would happen to her, I wouldn't have let her stay here."   
  
"Says you! You remember what happened to Henry's girlfriend!"   
  
"I really doubt Miss Henderson is going to do what Henry's girlfriend tried to do," Sean replied, refusing as usual to be ruffled. "Now go to school."   
  
"But..."   
  
"Go to _school_, Luke. As you pointed out to Kyle, this is my house, and I will run it as I see fit. If you don't like it, I'm not forcing you to stay here."   
  
"Right," Luke sighed.   
  
"You have a good day," said Sean.   
  
"Yeah. You too," Luke replied, and shut the door rather harder than was necessary. 


	12. Volume 2: Page 3

**VOLUME 2:** _Page 3 – Minor Confrontations_  
  
It wasn't until nearly half an hour after Luke left for school that Sean realized he hadn't seen his _other_ charge since breakfast. He considered this fact for a moment, then signed, finished his coffee, and stood up. If Luke vanished without warning, it was generally safe to ignore it; he had most likely just forgotten to mention that he was going out, and would be appropriately apologetic when he returned. When _Kyle_ did it, it might be two or three day before you saw him again.   
  
Fortunately, it seemed that Kyle wasn't up to pulling his disappearing act twice in a row. Sean found him in the rec room, stretched out on the floor and concentrating on a video game that seemed to involve a lot of computer-generated gunfire.   
  
"Excuse me," said Sean. "Sorry to interrupt... I'm sure you're very busy wiping out an alien species or something... but are you going to school today?"   
  
The answer was delivered without any hesitation. "No."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
"Because I don't happen to fucking feel like it," replied Kyle, keeping his eyes on the television screen. "Leave me alone."   
  
Sean sighed. Most parents, whether natural or foster, would have been very upset to hear that particular bit of venerable Anglo-Saxon vocabulary used in their house, but he let it slide. It was only a word – its power lay in its ability to get a reaction, and he didn't intend to provide one. "Very well," he said, "but just tell me something: what, exactly, do you mean to do with yourself when or if you grow up?"   
  
"Join the army," said Kyle. His thumbs flew over the game controls as he gunned down another monster. "That's what everybody else in this stupid family does."   
  
"Mm-hm." The older man nodded. "Well, you know, there are two ways one can look at military service, Kyle; the first is as a career, and the second is as a way of avoiding the real world. Take it from me, the latter approach doesn't work well at all."   
  
"Go away," said Kyle.   
  
Sean held up his hands. "Fine, fine... but if you're going to be home all day, I've got a few things I'd like you to do. I'll leave a list of them at your place at the table. Is that all right?"   
  
"Right." Kyle's voice suggested that he was already thinking of excuses for not doing whatever tasks would appear on the list.   
  
"And try to be civil to Miss Henderson," Sean added. "She won't be staying long, but she is a guest. If you can't be polite to her, then just ignore her."   
  
Kyle grunted. "Not like he's not gonna kick her out anyway."   
  
"I will take that to be Kylish for 'yes, sir, anything you say'," Sean replied dryly. "Tomorrow, you're going to school."   
  
"Make me."   
  
"Oh, I will," Sean promised. "And I'll enjoy it, too."  
  


* * *

  
Luke rarely got angry... at least, not violently so. He would steam for a while if something really annoyed him, but as a general rule he was too easygoing to actually sulk or hold a grudge for long. Whatever it was, it wouldn't matter in a hundred years, and there were probably more important things to worry about right now. In fact, the only person Luke was really able to get shouting mad at was Kyle, and he figured that was because Kyle was the closest thing he had to a brother.   
  
As he left the house that morning, however, Luke was nothing short of _furious_.   
  
He didn't care what anybody else thought about it – people who didn't live there simply had no business knowing what went on in the house... and Sean had no business telling them! What did he think he was accomplishing by letting the head of the family breathe down their necks all the time? It was like being on some kind of twisted television show; Big Brother Watching, day in and day out.   
  
Miss Henderson hadn't done anything to anybody. She was the proverbial innocent bystander to the crime-in-progress that was this family, and she clearly had enough problems of her own, without people she knew nothing about watching her every move. And _that_ was making the unlikely assumption that watching was all they'd do.   
  
She didn't deserve that. Neither did Luke or Kyle... and one of these days, Luke was going to reach the point where he just couldn't take it anymore. If somebody tried to hurt Miss Henderson, it might be sooner rather than later.   
  
Luke was still fuming as he climbed the steps to the school. He shouldered his way through the hallway crowds, earning several shouts of "hey, watch it!" and the like, and let his backpack fall to the floor in front of his locker with a thump.   
  
Then, of course, he discovered that his locker was in one of its moods. The damn thing was unpredictable at the best of times, and today it was downright ornery. After entering the combination at least three times, he stepped back and gave the locker door and good, sharp kick, just to relieve his temper.   
  
It made a louder noise than he'd expected, and when he looked up, the classmate whose locker was next to his was staring at him. "Hey, man," said the boy, "are you all right?"   
  
"I'm _fine_," growled Luke.   
  
The boy's eyes widened, but he nodded, taking a step backwards as he shut his own locker door.   
  
Luke shut his eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn't good; he had to cool down. He had a chemistry quiz this morning, and there was no way he was going to get anything like a decent grade if he was all riled up like this... but how was he supposed to relax when that poor girl at home might be in danger?   
  
In the effort to calm himself, he listened to the babble of sounds in the hallway and let his hearing de-focus, so that the hundreds of voices and footsteps blurred together into a steady background noise. It was almost lulling, and he felt himself actually beginning to relax before suddenly, out of the general cacophony leapt the name, "Toria."   
  
Luke opened his eyes and looked around, startled. Who'd said that? He cocked his head, trying to find the voice again in the clamor.   
  
"... hasn't had a sick day since the third grade," the speaker was saying. "Remember last year she turned up for finals with the flu, and gave it to everybody?"   
  
"Of course I do," was the reply. On the other side of the hallway and a few yards down, two girls were standing next to an open locker. The one who'd just spoken was short, with pale skin and dark hair, wearing a dress that wouldn't have looked out-of-place in a gothic horror movie. "But you didn't see her aura yesterday."   
  
"Oh, shut up about the aura," said her friend – a tall, athletic blonde in a stylish camisole and jeans. "I don't _need_ to be able to see anybody's aura to know that was a pretty awful cough she had."   
  
The dark girl just shrugged. "Well, then," she said, "you also shouldn't need to..." she paused.   
  
"What?" asked the blonde.   
  
"I just felt..." the dark girl looked over her shoulder.   
  
"A great disturbance in the Force?" her friend offered sarcastically.   
  
"No... somebody is listening to us."   
  
Luke felt his cheeks start burning as he quickly turned around and concentrated on trying again to open his lock. How had she known he was listening? He was halfway down the hall... most people wouldn't have even been able to _hear_ them from that far away. Was she psychic, or what?   
  
His fingers shook a little as he spun the combination into his lock... which, mercifully, decided to open this time. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, he hung up his jacket and grabbed his chemistry textbook, then shut the door and turned around...   
  
... only to find the two girls _right behind him_. The chemistry book hit the floor with a thump.   
  
"It isn't polite to eavesdrop," said the dark one.   
  
"I wasn't eavesdropping," Luke said, not taking his eyes off her as he bent to pick up his book.   
  
She shook her head. "Your aura turns yellow when you're lying."   
  
The blonde raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said yesterday his colours were off."   
  
"They are," said the dark girl. "But not only does his aura turn yellow, his ears turn bright red."   
  
Her saying so made them turn even redder. Luke swallowed... maybe if he told them what they'd evidently been wanting to know, they'd go away? "Er," he said, "your friend... um... she's out sick today." He thought fast. "I had to go take something to the office this morning, and I overheard one of the secretaries on the phone. I have good hearing," he added, remembering that normal people could only 'overhear' _one_ half of a telephone conversation.  
  
"Evidently," said the blonde.   
  
The dark girl was still looking at him – how could somebody just _looking_ be so creepy? – and both girls were entirely too close for Luke's comfort; he was trapped between them and the wall. "Uh... do you mind?" he asked, motioning for them to back up. "I have to get to class..."   
  
"Oh, that's right," the blonde nodded, "you don't like touching girls, do you?"   
  
Luke nodded nervously. "Yeah... I have this thing..."   
  
"Mm-hm. So what happens if I do _this_, then?" She reached to touch his cheek.   
  
He started to duck out of the way, but it turned out to be unnecessary; the dark girl's hand darted up and grabbed her friend by the wrist. "Stop," she said. "He just told you he doesn't like it."   
  
"It won't kill him," the blonde protested.   
  
But just then, to Luke's eternal gratitude, the bell rang. He said a small prayer of thanks and picked up his backpack again. "Excuse me," he said, sliding past the two of them.   
  
"Hey!" protested the blonde. "Come back here!"   
  
But Luke kept looking straight ahead, determined to put as much distance between himself and these unnerving young women as possible. 


	13. Volume 2: Page 4

**VOLUME 2:** _Page 4 - Suspicions On All Fronts_  
  
The table where the three girls normally had lunch was very quiet that day... although when Unity thought about it, that was a bit strange – Toria was not, as a general rule, what people described as talkative. The lack of conversation was more because without her, Hannah tended to be distant and Unity cynical. Unless they had Toria's bubbly optimism to balance them, neither could really think of anything to say.  
  
"You know," Unity spoke up to break the silence, "do you think Toria's right? Do we worry about her too much?"  
  
It took a moment for Hannah's eyes to re-focus on something closer than infinity, and Unity wasn't sure at first that she'd even heard. But once she came out of her apparent trance, she shook her head. "No," she replied firmly. "I think she _needs_ to be worried about."  
  
"Mmm," Unity agreed, taking a bite of her sandwich. "Yeah, _someone's_ gotta do if she won't do it herself."  
  
"Exactly." Hannah slowly stirred her cup of ramen and thought for a moment. "I also think," she added, "that perhaps we ought to try and get in touch with Toria's aunt. As her legal guardian, she shouldn't be letting her wear herself down like that."  
  
"Mm! Thssa gd..." Unity quickly chewed and swallowed. "That's a good idea! If she's not paying enough attention then that's neglect. We should call the child welfare people!" Unity Harris had quite a bit of experience with the state's child welfare department.  
  
"Don't be hasty," Hannah told her. "First we need to establish that there's a problem."  
  
Unity nodded. "Right. Well, when she gets back, we'll have to get that phone number from her – and not let her weasel out of it this time! I can't believe she's been living with this woman almost five months and we _still_ don't know the number."  
  
"Yeah," said Hannah slowly. "That's sort of strange, isn't it? It's as if she doesn't _want_ us talking to her at home. She's keeping something from us, you know. She has been for months."  
  
"Oh, I know. I don't need to be psychic to know _that_." Unity rolled her eyes. "You know what _I_ wonder about? That guy this morning. Maybe I'm paranoid, but why was he even interested? You don't think he's stalking her, do you?"  
  
"No." Hannah shook her head. "He's not a stalker. I'm not sure what he is, though."  
  
Unity raised an eyebrow. "Coming from _you_, that sounds sort of ominous." She looked around the cafeteria. "Where is he?"  
  
"Not here," said Hannah.  
  
"He's not? Where is he?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Huh," said Unity. "Maybe we scared him off."  
  
"Possible," Hannah said tranquilly. "Not probable. But possible."  
  


* * *

  
As Sean had promised, by midday the sunlight coming in Toria's window had heated the room to sweltering, but she was far too tired to notice it. She rolled over in her sleep, dragging the duvet off and onto the floor, but what woke her up was not the heat, but the sound of something rapping against the window.  
  
Toria opened her eyes and sat up, only to be nearly blinded by the brilliant sunshine. She quickly covered her face with her hands, but trying to peek out between her fingers didn't help – there was too much light for her to be able to see anything.  
  
The knocking repeated itself. Toria got up to take a look... and was immediately sorry. Standing up straight made her dizzy and bought on another bout of coughing. Her eyes were stinging as she staggered across the room, undid the catch and cranked the window open... and there was Luke, clinging precariously to the sloping roof.  
  
"Hello," he said, grinning nervously at her. "Can I come in?"  
  
"I... guess," replied Toria. She backed up to let him climb inside... he probably wasn't going to hurt her. He'd been nice so far, and the range of things he could try to do to her was severely limited if he couldn't touch her. "How'd you get up there?" she wanted to know. Below the window was a straight drop of about fourteen feet to the front porch.  
  
"Oh, I climbed one of the trees out back," he replied, his knuckles turning white as he hauled himself up onto the windowsill. "Then I went over the garage roof. Don't worry," he added, seeing her startled expression. "When I'm not being chased by something four times my size I'm actually a pretty good climber. Last summer we went up to Colorado, and I... woah!" he yelped, as one foot slipped off the shingles. "No, it's fine, I'm okay!"  
  
Unfortunately, Toria had already grabbed his hand, and only then realized that he'd taken his gloves off to get a better grip for climbing. She tried to let go, but it was too late – the next thing she knew, a grey squirrel was scrambling up her arm to her shoulder, and Luke's clothes were sliding down the slope of the roof, to land in a heap on the driveway.  
  
"I'm sorry!" Toria exclaimed. She lifted the squirming squirrel off her shoulder and set it down on the bed. "Sorry," she repeated. Could he still understand her? "I'll go get your stuff... you just wait here, okay?"  
  
She didn't get a reply, but squirrels are not known as great conversationalists. The little animal just sat quietly, so she assumed that represented agreement and hurried down the stairs. As far as she could see from the landing, Sean was not in evidence... he must've been home, though – the key was in the front door. Toria decided not to look for him; instead, she hurried outside and collected Luke's clothing, then tiptoed back up to her room and knocked softly on the door.  
  
"Luke?" she asked. "Are you in there?"  
  
"Yeah," he replied.  
  
"I've got your clothes." She opened the door just far enough to admit her arm, and pushed them through.  
  
"Thanks." She felt him take them. "Just a sec, then..."  
  
It didn't seem to take very long for him to get dressed, but then, she thought, he probably had a lot of practice doing so in a hurry. Only perhaps a minute passed before he said, "okay, you can come in." When Toria opened the door, she found him sitting on the bed, doing up his shoelaces.  
  
"Sorry 'bout that," he muttered, not looking at her.  
  
She shook her head. "You don't have to be sorry – I should be sorry. I didn't look. I'll try to be more careful from now on, I promise."  
  
"That's not what I meant." Luke finished one shoe and began tying the other. "I mean, thanks, but... I'm just sorry for... well..." he shrugged vaguely. "You know."  
  
"It's not your fault," said Toria.  
  
He raised his head and gave her a funny look. "You can't tell me it doesn't bother you."  
  
"Well... it's weird," Toria admitted, "but I guess if I stay here a while I'll get used to it. My Mom used to tell me that 'normal' is whatever we grow up with."  
  
Rather unexpectedly, Luke laughed. "Isn't _that_ the truth?" he said. "I remember... um..."  
  
Toria waited, but whatever it was he'd been about to say, it seemed that he changed his mind.  
  
"Well," he said. "Er... I need to tell you something."  
  
"Oh. All right," said Toria. "Why did you climb in the window?" she asked. Maybe it was the wrong moment, but she _was_ curious.  
  
"Because I don't think Uncle Sean would want me to talk to you about this," said Luke. "You've been in bed all morning, right?"  
  
Toria nodded.  
  
He licked his lips nervously. "After I left for school, Uncle Sean made a phone call... you're not the first person who's ever found out about this," he added. "There was a bunch of kids when I was in the first grade, but that was okay because... well, they were six years old, and when a six-year-old says that something like that happened, nobody believes it. But there've been other people, and... well, stuff's happened to them."  
  
"What sort of stuff?" asked Toria. It couldn't be what he made it sound like it was... could it? The Somerses seemed like nice people! Sean wouldn't offer to let her stay and then just...  
  
"It depends," said Luke. "I'm sorry, I know I'm scaring you, but I thought I'd better warn you. See, the guy Uncle Sean called... I guess he's sort of the head of the family. He's Kyle's and my great-grandfather, although we're not allowed to call him that. All the family's money and everything all belongs to him, so everybody sort of sucks up to him. He doesn't like strangers knowing about us. You didn't do anything wrong, and I don't want you to get hurt."  
  
Toria didn't know how to answer that. What had she gotten herself into? "Well... would your uncle really let me stay if he thought anybody was going to hurt me?"  
  
"I'm not sure," said Luke. "I don't _think_ he would, but Uncle Sean's sort of unpredictable. I can never tell what he's thinking. But if he – the head of the family, I mean – if he says you can't stay here, then you'll have to leave, no matter whether we want you or not."  
  
"I see," said Toria, although she didn't; these people made no sense at all. "Thank you for telling me."  
  
"You're welcome," he replied awkwardly. "I'll see you after school, then."  
  
"If I'm still here," Toria smiled, trying to make a joke out of it, but Luke cringed.  
  
"Yeah," he said. 


	14. Volume 2: Page 5

Author's Note: I'm afraid even the very tiny bit of history presented here has been somewhat warped – if you're interested in the Beothuks, there's an excellent page about them at www . dickshovel . com / beo.html. The song Sean refers to is Great Big Sea's _Demasduit Dream_.  
  
The 'Soundtrack' has also been moved and updated: www . ainself . net / irony / crackers /  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 2:** _Page 5 – Things From Long Ago_  
  
After Luke had gone, Toria tried to go back to sleep, with little success. She spent perhaps half an hour lying there quietly with her eyes closed, but eventually she had to admit that it was a lost cause. The bedroom was bright and baking in the afternoon sun, and no matter how many times she reminded herself that Sean had been nothing but nice last night and this morning, Luke's warning had worried her. This was _his_ family, after all... he'd know better than she what they might do...  
  
No, she told herself firmly, that was silly. Sean had _said_ she could stay until she felt better.., whatever they might be going to do to her, if anything, they wouldn't do it while she was still sick. Nobody was that mean. Right now, Toria needed to sleep and get better, not worry about things that were completely beyond her control.  
  
She rolled over and shut her eyes again, but a few minutes later, sighed and sat up. This was no good; between the heat and the worry, more sleep was out of the question until she'd gotten some reassurance... or at least, gotten a bit of fresh air. She pushed the covers back and climbed out of bed to look for Sean.  
  
He was not difficult to find; he turned out to be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee and absorbed in something on the screen of his laptop computer. Toria reached up to knock on the doorframe, but before her fingers reached it, he raised his head to look at her.  
  
"Good afternoon, Miss Henderson," he said cheerfully. "Too hot up there for you?"  
  
"No, it's fine," she lied – she was a guest. She had no right to be complaining. "I was just wondering something."  
  
"Yes?" he asked.  
  
It took her a moment to think of something she could have been wondering about. "Mr. Somers," she began...  
  
Sean shook his head and held up a hand. "Sorry, Miss Henderson," he said, "but the last person who addressed me as 'Mr. Somers' was a man by the name of Sergeant Wong. I had a long and involved conversation with him over whether I ought to pay a traffic ticket incurred by failing to stop at a sign that I didn't notice because it had, in fact, been stolen the previous evening. Please find something else to call me."  
  
"Oh. Okay." She shrugged uncomfortably. "What would you like to be called?"  
  
"Just 'Sean' is fine," he told her.  
  
"All right," Toria nodded, but she suspected she'd end up just trying to avoid calling him anything – it didn't feel right, calling a grownup by his first name. "Anyway... um... Sean. I was just thinking, if I'm going to stay here a while, maybe I could cook dinners for you? I'd rather not just sit in bed all day and let you look after me."  
  
"That would be wonderful," said Sean. "I don't think I want to _know_ what Kyle's been eating this week, but Luke and I have been living off take-out and the grease is starting to get to me. If you think you're well enough, you're welcome."  
  
"Great." Toria smiled. "Is there anything special you'd like to request?"  
  
"As long as it isn't pizza or ginger beef, I couldn't much care," Sean replied.  
  
Toria nodded, feeling much better now. It was hard to imagine anybody as pleasant as this man putting her in harm's way. "Okay," she said. "I'll go and get dressed, then, and see what you have ingredients for."  
  
"You do that," said Sean. Then, as she turned to leave, he added, "oh, by the way."  
  
She stopped and looked back to see him holding out a small, dark blue object... it took her a moment to recognize it as the wallet she'd made in art class last year, when the teacher had made everybody sculpt things out of duct tape. Toria still wasn't sure what most of the resulting creations had to do with art, but she _had_ gotten a wallet out of it.  
  
"Yours," Sean said. "I'm sorry, but I needed to be able to tell the hospital who you were and whether you had any allergies, and I forgot to put it back in your bags when we got home. I haven't touched anything in it."  
  
Toria accepted the wallet and nodded. "Thank you."  
  
One of Sean's eyebrows rose. "Not going to look and make sure?" he asked.  
  
"I trust you," replied Toria, which wasn't _entirely_ true – she'd meant to open the wallet and check its contents once she was out of the room, but it seemed rude to do it right in front of him.  
  
He smiled. "Sorry if I'm prying," he said, his eyes back on his computer screen, "but... there's a card in there that says you're part Algonquin?"  
  
"That's right," said Toria. She looked down at the wallet, feeling her ears heat up; this was something she didn't like discussing much. "It's not much – something like one thirty-second, way back on my Mother's side. I got the card because, you see, Native Americans get different unemployment benefits and things like that, and... well, it's sort of cheating," she admitted, embarrassed, "but..."  
  
"No need to apologize," said Sean. "We all do our best in this world. I was just curious, is all... do you happen to know which tribe?"  
  
"I think Mom said it was Demasduit."  
  
"Demasduit?" Sean glanced up momentarily. "Demasduit was a person, not a tribe. She was the last of the Beothuk people."  
  
"Oh," said Toria. "I didn't know that."  
  
"Some Canadian folk group did a song about her a couple of years ago," Sean said. "I'll see if I can find a recording for you. She's quite a fascinating character, really... it's an honour to think I might have one of her descendants under my roof."  
  
Toria's ears got even hotter as she smiled back at him. "Um. Thanks," she said, although she wasn't _quite_ sure that was the appropriate response. "I'll... just go get dressed, then. Thank you," she said again.  
  
"You're very welcome," Sean replied.  
  


* * *

  
_"Are you _finished_?" the Old Man asked impatiently.  
  
The boy wasn't. He was sitting curled in one of the study's huge leather armchairs, his knees tucked up under his chin and tears streaming down his face. The room was full of looming grownups with disapproving faces, all looking at him as if he were something small and nasty they would like to step on... and well, they might. After all, he'd just done the worst thing any member of the family could possibly do; he'd been _discovered_. He felt as if he could just sit here and cry forever and ever.  
  
But whether he was actually finished or not didn't matter – he was sharp enough to know that the Old Man hadn't asked the question because he wanted an answer. He'd asked because he wanted the boy to start answering his questions, and terrible things would happen if he didn't obey. He sat up and wiped his dripping nose on his sleeve.  
  
"Yes, sir," he said meekly.  
  
A lot of people would have responded to that with a sarcastic, "good," but the Old Man was not one of them. He just snorted. "Now, what happened?"  
  
The boy swallowed a mouthful of the mucus that was trickling down the back of his throat – it was slimy and salty, and made him want to gag. "We were playing tag," he said, weaving his fingers together into people in a church, the way his teacher had taught him. It kept him from having to look up at all these people who hated him. "At recess. Crystal was 'it', and she was kind of mad at me." He sniffed hard, trying to clear his nose. "In art class, she dropped her gold crayon, the sparkly one, and I stepped on it. I didn't mean to, but she said..."  
  
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Luke Somers!" the Old Man thumped on his desk angrily with one fist. "I don't care! Just quit crying like a girl and get on with it, would you?"  
  
Luke shrank back. The temptation to curl up into a little ball and try to hide amongst the cushions was all but overwhelming. "She was 'it'," he repeated, his voice nearly breaking with tears, "and she was still mad, so she sort of tackled me instead of tagging me..."  
  
"And she touched you." It was not a question. "How many people saw?"  
  
Luke wasn't sure. "Six?" he guessed, then added hopefully. "None of them were grownups."  
  
The Old Man plainly didn't believe that. "Come on, now," he said. "Six people saw _that_ and none of them called for help?"  
  
"Well, Crystal screamed," Luke admitted. "And Mr. Thomson came to see, but by then it was okay."  
  
"Was it?"  
  
"Yes," said Luke, nodding. "I'd gone up a tree, and he asked why I was up there without clothes on, so Crystal told him, but he thought she was making it up."  
  
The Old Man nodded, a sour expression on his face. "Well, that's no permanent harm done, I guess... but I want him out of that school," he added, turning to Uncle Sean. "Bloody well home school him if you don't want to pay for it, but..."  
  
"No," said Uncle Sean. "He needs to learn to interact with other children, and he won't do it in a place where he's not allowed to talk to them. Nobody's going to believe a bunch of six-year-olds, and the kids will have forgotten about it in a month or two. I want him to stay in school."  
  
"Ridiculous!" snapped the Old Man. "You're wasting your time. You know better than anybody that it doesn't matter if he gets along with other kids or not! He will never have close friends, he will never have a girlfriend, he will never fit in anywhere or really be able to get to know anybody! You damn well know that, Sean Somers! You won't do him any favours by candy-coating it for him!"  
  
The two men locked eyes for a moment, but as always, it was Sean who looked away first. "I'll call his principle tomorrow morning," he said, then crossed to the leather chair and scooped the sobbing boy up. Luke buried his face in his Uncle's shirt and shut his eyes, trying to cry silently.  
  
"I don't _want_ to go to Hank's school," he whimpered, as he was carried out of the room.  
  
"I know," Sean replied. "But I think it might be best for now. Maybe when you're a bit older, we can send you back to public school, all right? Now come on, I'll buy you some ice cream. It's going to be okay, Luke."  
  
Luke nodded... but it wasn't okay. Nothing was ever okay... at least as far as the Old Man was concerned._


	15. Volume 2: Page 6

**VOLUME 2:** _Page 6 - After School_  
  
When the three-thirty bell rang, Luke already had all of his things back in his bag, and was the first person out the classroom door. He'd been watching the clock all afternoon, his nerves stretched nearly to the snapping point as the second hand crawled along - _anything_ could have happened to that poor girl in the last two and a half hours, without him there to even argue about it, and if anybody had hurt her, then he was going to...  
  
"Hey, Luke!" a voice called from down the hall. "Wait up!"  
  
Luke looked up from his locker, and winced as he saw Aida Kelley bouncing towards him. Aida was a pretty girl, with ginger hair and a pronounced Irish accent, and she'd made a point of hanging around him ever since breaking up with her last boyfriend. It was getting a little annoying.  
  
"Hello, Aida," he said carefully.  
  
She smiled at him with her very white, very straight teeth. "You're in an awful hurry, aren't you?"  
  
Luke swallowed. "Yeah... kinda." He crossed his fingers behind his back. "I can't talk - my Uncle wants me to come right home tonight. We've got company over. Relatives."  
  
"Ohhh," she nodded. "You have to put in an appearance, huh?"  
  
"That's right." Luke began stuffing books into his backpack.  
  
"Family can be such a pain, can't they?" Aida asked sympathetically. "My Grandma comes to stay every so often, and my sister and I have to just sit there and nod and smile while she talks about the most boring stuff... and her hearing aid never works, so it's not as if we can even answer her."  
  
Luke grimaced - as if she had the _slightest_ idea what she was talking about. There was 'a pain', and then there was 'co-dependant and dysfunctional'. But all he said as he zipped up his bag and shut his locker door was, "yeah. A real pain."  
  
"Guess I'll see you around, then," Aida told him. "If you need an excuse to escape from the relatives, a few friends and I were going to go roller-skating tonight, and..."  
  
"Thanks," he interrupted, "but I really don't think I'd better."  
  
This didn't seem to discourage her a bit. "Okay," she said. "Maybe some other time, then."  
  
"Maybe." Luke tried to sound pessimistic - it wasn't hard. "I'll see you later, Aida."  
  
"Bye, Luke!" she waved cheerfully as he walked away.  
  
Luke knew it wouldn't be a good idea to run the entire way home, no matter how much he might want to, so he set off instead at a very fast walk, keeping his eyes on the ground because he felt like an utter heel. He didn't dislike Aida - though he wasn't sure he exactly liked her, either - and it didn't seem fair that he had to string her along like that. It would have been nice to be able to just _say_, flat out, 'no, I'm sorry but I don't want to date you or anybody else', but he knew exactly what people would think if he went around telling girls _that_.  
  
So that left him just making excuses until she got frustrated and gave up... which made him feel - and probably look - like a jerk. The fact that it wasn't his fault was not much consolation.  
  
The Old Man - Luke still thought of him that way - was right; he usually was, which had never made him any more likable. The cursed members of the Somers family couldn't even really _pretend_ to be normal. Luke had a good memory for names and faces, but none of the people he knew, even the rest of the basketball team or the group of guys he ate lunch with, were really any more than casual acquaintances. Somerses weren't allowed real friends, because if you didn't distance yourself from people, they'd find out. And nothing good had ever come of people finding out.  
  
And _that_ naturally brought Luke's mind back to Toria. He quickened his pace, silently begging any listening deity that she'd still be there when he arrived. If she wasn't... well, really, if certain people wanted to throw her out, there was nothing he could do about it either way. All he'd gain by finding her still there was the reassurance that she was all right so far. But even that was _something_.  
  


* * *

  
When he arrived at home, Luke climbed the front steps two at a time, unlocked the door... and then hesitated. On a second thought, it was probably a bad idea to just barge in. There was a distinct possibility that they might have guests besides Miss Henderson by now, and while she might forgive him for doing something impolite, they wouldn't.  
  
He took a deep breath and opened the door slowly, to look inside without being noticed. There was no-one in the living room - that was probably a good sign. An even better one was the smell of someone cooking onions. The Old Man hated onions, as well as just about everything else that could give food some personality; if somebody were cooking them, then that made it very unlikely he was in the house.  
  
"Hello!" Luke called tentatively, stepping inside. "I'm home!"  
  
"Hi!" Toria's bright voice replied from the kitchen.  
  
She sounded happy enough... but hers was also the only response Luke got. Of course, he wouldn't have expected Kyle to answer him, but surely Uncle Sean should have said something. Luke hung his jacket over the end of the banister, and went to take a look. He found Toria alone in the kitchen, still in her pajamas and bare feet, and busy cooking something green and white in the big frying pan.  
  
"Shouldn't you still be in bed?" he asked.  
  
Toria shook her head. "I'm feeling much... much better," she replied, despite having to pause halfway through the sentence in order to loudly clear her throat. "I couldn't fall asleep again after you climbed up to visit me, so I asked your uncle if I could make dinner for you tonight."  
  
"You were in the hospital last night," said Luke, "and now you're cooking dinner?" That didn't sound quite right to him.  
  
But Toria clearly wasn't bothered by it at all. "Don't worry," she assured him, her smile not even flickering. "I'm just fine."  
  
Luke decided to take her word for it. "What are you making?" he asked, fishing an apple out of the bowl on the kitchen table.  
  
"It's a surprise," she said brightly.  
  
"Fair enough." He nodded and took a bite, then asked, carefully casual, "did Uncle Sean go out?"  
  
"Yes." Toria nodded. "He took Kyle and went to see your principal."  
  
That was a relief... if it was true. "How long have they been gone?"  
  
"Oh..." she looked at the clock, "not very long - maybe half an hour now."  
  
"Did he say when they'd be back?"  
  
"No," Toria said, "but I don't imagine it'll take very long."  
  
Luke didn't either; the school was, after all, only a few blocks away. The Family House, on the other hand, was outside of town, forty-five minutes by car. So if they weren't back in a hurry, he'd know. He wouldn't be able to _do_ anything about it, but he'd know.  
  


* * *

  
Fortunately, somebody upstairs seemed to be on Luke's side for once - it was only about another fifteen minutes before he heard the familiar rumble of Sean's car coming up the street. By this time, Toria had finished with whatever it had been she was frying; that was now layered in a pan with a few other things, and in the over cooking. She had begun mixing up something else, which he was guessing was dessert - it had cocoa in it - while he sat at the kitchen table, with newspaper spread out so that he was less likely to get model cement on anything it shouldn't come in contact with.  
  
"Sounds like they're back," he remarked, keeping his eyes on the wing of his model Harrier - the cement was _impossible_ to get off again if you didn't put something together straight.  
  
"They are?" asked Toria. "I don't hear anyth..." she cut herself off as the garage door started to open. "Oh, there they are."  
  
There they were, indeed... seconds later, a car door slammed and Kyle could be heard shouting. This was followed by the sound of stamping feet, and Luke's hypersensitive ears twinged in protest as the inside garage door was thrown open so hard, it bounced off the wall with a bang and rattled the plates and glasses in the cupboard.  
  
"Kyle!" Sean said sharply, his voice muffled by the intervening layers of wall. "Remember, you that you aren't legally an adult yet - I am responsible for you, and am supposed to ensure that you get some measure of education! What you _do_ with it is up to you... but you are going to have it!"  
  
"Go to hell!" Kyle hollered back. The doors of the front hall closet rattled as they were ripped violently open, two dull thuds were Kyle's sneakers being all but thrown against the wall, and then more heavy footsteps went up the stairs, down the hall, and into Kyle's bedroom. A few moments after that, the windowpanes began to vibrate in time to Pearl Jam, with extra percussion.  
  
Luke looked at Toria, who was standing with a decidedly stunned expression on her face, and wished he could call up the curse at will... that way, he would have been able to climb a tree or crawl into a very small hole, and wouldn't have to be here while she saw his cousin act like an idiot.  
  
The garage door grumbled shut again, and Sean entered the kitchen, halfway through un-knotting his tie. He was still wearing sweatpants, but this set was a rather faded black, and paired with a beige button-down shirt and the tie, which had penguins on it.  
  
"Good afternoon," he said cheerfully. "Whatever's in the oven smells lovely, Toria."  
  
"Er... thank you," she replied.  
  
Sean hung his tie over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, undid the top button of his shirt, and started up the stairs. "Tomorrow," he announced, sounding very pleased with himself indeed, "Kyle is going to school!" 


	16. Volume 2: Page 7

Author's Note: Look! Gasp! Shock! An update! Yes, I will definitely be finishing Volume Two... I don't think I'll do a Volume Three, though.  
  
Since I won't, and since people seem to want to know, the cursed members of the family are as follows: Adam is a snake, Anges a skunk, Chris a turkey, Eric a sheep, Hank a moose, Henry a catfish, Kaycee a puma, Lynn a deer, Mally a rabbit, and Ritz a raccoon. The other three, of course, you already know. ^_^  
  


* * *

  
**VOLUME 2:** _Page 7 - Dinner with the Family_  
  
Just after 5:45, Toria proudly removed the pan from the oven and announced, "dinner's ready!"  
  
Luke was still sitting at the kitchen table, working on his model airplane. "Just a sec," he said, screwing the cap back on his tube of glue and wiping his hands on his jeans.  
  
"Did I hear dinner?" asked Sean's voice, and a moment later, Sean himself appeared in the rec room doorway. "Oh, good, I did," he said. "What is it?"  
  
Toria put the steaming pan down on a cork mat and took off her oven mitts, beaming. "Vegetarian lasagna!" she said proudly.  
  
She had always liked cooking. She'd first taught herself how when she was in the fourth grade; that was the year her mother had worked night shifts, and it had been an utterly miserable experience for both members of that small family. Karolyn would be just getting out of bed as Toria came home from school, would leave after dinner, and then not be home until four AM, which meant that the two barely saw one another except on weekends. The strain of keeping this unusual schedule had quickly begun to show, and after about a week Toria had, without being asked, taken up doing the cooking and the laundry herself. They'd lived off hot dogs and popcorn for a while, until she got brave enough to try following a recipe... but as always, they'd survived.  
  
The vegetarian lasagna recipe was one she'd found in a magazine, and she'd liked it so much that she'd memorized it. Toria and her mother had both considered it a favourite dish, so she'd been delighted to find that the Somers family had all the ingredients on hand... their housekeeper must've liked making Italian food.  
  
"I've already set the table," she added, "so just a moment while I dish it out."  
  
"Yum!" Luke stood up. "I'll pour drinks."  
  
"Thank you," said Toria... then glanced up and noticed Sean, whose pleased expression had vanished.  
  
"No meat?" he asked.  
  
"Um... no," said Toria. "Not in this. Sorry," she added, suddenly aware that she'd given the wrong impression. "I'm not a vegetarian, this is just a really good recipe. If you don't like it, I could find something else..."  
  
Sean smiled. "Well, I suppose I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it, should I? Kyle!" he called. "Are you coming for dinner?"  
  
"No," came the reply from upstairs.  
  
"We'll leave some for you if you want it later," Sean told him, unperturbed. "Well, Toria... let's see how it tastes."  
  
Toria glanced down at the pan, and then carefully divided the first slice she'd cut into halves and gave one each to Sean and Luke. The question about meat had unnerved her... maybe she should have chosen a less unusual recipe? But they sat down in the dining room and dug in happily enough; Sean took a big forkful and chewed it slowly, then nodded.  
  
"Mmm," he said. "Well! Kyle doesn't know what he's missing."  
  
"Kyle wouldn't eat it anyway if it's vegetarian," said Luke. "This is really good, Toria."  
  
"You really think so?" she asked anxiously. She always had a sneaking feeling that people who complimented her were just trying to spare her feelings.  
  
"We do." Sean said. "And I'm not normally into anything vegetarian... Luke likes his veggies, but Kyle and myself are the carnivores around here."  
  
"That makes sense," Toria agreed. "I mean, dogs and cats are... um..." she bit her lip, realizing that the quip she'd been about to make probably wouldn't be all that funny to them. "I'm sorry."  
  
"No need," Sean told her. "Think of the curse as being like sex, drugs, or dying – it's not going to go away, so we might as well talk about it. Now put something on your own plate and come sit down. You're not a waitress. It's been a while since we had enough people at this table for a proper conversation anyway."  
  
Toria did as she was told... but her embarrassment over her ill-advised joke had reminded her painfully that she was an outsider here. These people were nice, but they were not normal and she did not belong with them. As she cut herself a portion of lasagna, she tried to think of something else to say to start a conversation, but ended up drawing a complete blank. Instead, she just sat down to eat in silence.  
  
"Oh, and speaking of the curse," said Sean.  
  
She looked up at him. "Yes?"  
  
"I had a bit of a chat with Arthur this morning."  
  
Toria glanced at Luke, who had stopped moving with his fork halfway to his mouth and appeared to be holding his breath as he waited for his uncle to continue. She swallowed.  
  
"Arthur?" she asked.  
  
Sean nodded and took another forkful of lasagna. "Yes – my grandfather. He's sort of... the head of the family, you might call him. He likes to know what goes on around here." The tone Sean said this in suggested he had a good idea that Toria had already heard most of what he was telling her. "So I gave him a call after the boys left for school and explained that you'd be staying with us a little while."  
  
"Oh," said Toria, wishing she could come up with something more intelligent. "What did he say?"  
  
"He said that'll be fine for the time being," Sean replied mildly. "Just so long as you keep our secret for us. Do you think you can do that?"  
  
"Of course I can," Toria assured him. "I'm good at keeping secrets." She'd kept her own, after all, for months.  
  
Sean smiled. "Wonderful," he said. "Then we should all get along just beautifully. I don't suppose I could have another helping of lasagna, could I?"  
  
"Sure!" Toria stood up. "Luke, do you want some more, too?"  
  
"Please," he said, nodding.  
  
"All right," Toria said, taking their plates. "I'll be right back."  
  


* * *

  
Luke sat and waited quietly until she'd gone back into the kitchen, then leaned towards his uncle. "What _really_ happened?" he asked in a low voice.  
  
"Mmm?" Sean licked a stray bit of sauce away from the corner of his mouth. "What do you mean?"  
  
That very nearly did it... Luke very nearly snapped and stood up to shout at him, but he reminded himself that Toria was right in the next room and would hear if he did. It was already obvious how uncomfortable it was, and he'd only make it worse if he lost his temper. "I _mean_," he said, feeling his jaw muscles clench, "what did he _really_ say to you? I don't think he just decided to let her stay, out of the goodness of his heart."  
  
"Really, Luke, have you no faith in human nature?"  
  
"Sure I do. Just not _his_," said Luke. "Now come on. What did he say?"  
  
Sean considered it for a moment, then appeared to give in. "If you absolutely must know, Arthur and I have made a bet."  
  
Luke blinked. "A bet?"  
  
"Here we are!" Toria announced, re-entering the room with their plates re-filled. She set them down proudly – the second helpings were considerably larger than the first.  
  
"Ah, thank you very much," said Sean. "You know," he added, starting to stand up, "I think I'm just going to go grab myself a bottle of beer..."  
  
"I can do it," Toria offered, as Luke had suspected she would... and probably as Sean also had; he was trying to get her out of the room again. "I'm already up. Where are they kept?"  
  
"In the fridge in the basement," said Sean. "Thank you very much, Toria."  
  
"It's no problem," she said breezily.  
  
As soon as she was gone, Sean turned back to Luke. "Yes," he said, "A bet."  
  
That did not sound as if it boded any good. "What were the terms?" Luke asked suspiciously.  
  
"I'm not going to tell you."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because that would bias the whole thing," said Sean, still refusing to use anything but an eminently – and infuriatingly – reasonable tone of voice. He looked at the expression on his nephew's face, and the corners of his mouth twitched. "Luke," he said, "you only just met this girl."  
  
"It's not that," Luke replied, annoyed. "I'm not that kind of idiot. It just doesn't seem fair to drag her into all this. This is _our_ problem; it's got nothing to do with her, and she could get hurt. She's so..." he searched for the right word and couldn't find it, so he settled, rather lamely, on, "helpless."  
  
"You think so?" asked Sean. "I've known people twice her size who couldn't have taken half what she says she's gone through."  
  
Luke shrugged. He couldn't deny that... he doubted _he_ could have lived for six months on his own, working and going to school. But Sean hadn't seen the poor girl curled up on the floor of the garden house, soaked and sick and crying for her mother.  
  
"I think she can take care of herself," said Sean, "and Arthur's said she can live here for as long as a year if we want her to. I think she might surprise all of us."  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?" Luke asked.  
  
Sean didn't answer. 


	17. Volume 2: Page 8

Author's Note: Only one more to go!

* * *

**VOLUME 2:** _Page 8 - Hired_  
  
Dessert, which was chocolate brownies, was just as big a hit as the lasagna. Sean finished off four of them, much to Luke's embarrassment, then sat back in his chair with his hands behind his head and a big, satisfied grin on his face. "Well, that was certainly a treat," he said. "I don't think I even remember the last time we ate like that, but it wasn't at home, I can tell you that much."  
  
"Thank you," Toria replied. She picked up Sean's plate – which barely looked as if it had been eaten off of; he'd sopped up the leftover lasagna sauce with a slice of bread, then picked up every crumb from his brownies – and set it on top of her own to take to the kitchen.  
  
"I can take those," Luke offered, holding out his hands for them.  
  
"No, it's all right," Toria reassured him. "I'll do it. Do you want another brownie?" He had eaten two.  
  
"No, thank you," he replied. "They're good," he added quickly, "but I couldn't eat another bite."  
  
Toria nodded and picked up his plate, ignoring it as Luke glared at his uncle. She hadn't been bothered at all by Sean's behavior... perhaps he'd made a bit of a pig of himself, but that was a compliment, wasn't it? It meant he liked her cooking. "I'm sorry I couldn't make anything fancier," she said, "but you didn't have much for ingredients."  
  
"Then I shall have to go grocery shopping," said Sean. "Just give me a list of what you'd like, and I'll make a trip tomorrow."  
  
"Oh, you don't have to..." Toria began.  
  
"I certainly do!" he replied. "Don't worry, Toria, I'm not doing a favour for you – I'm doing one for myself. I happen to enjoy good food, and I'd like to keep it coming... as long as you don't mind cooking, of course. Do you?"  
  
She shook her head. "I love cooking."  
  
"Well, I love eating, so it all works out!"  
  
Luke rolled his eyes.  
  
"Now," Sean added, sitting up, "do you know what would make this evening perfect?"  
  
"What?" asked Toria.  
  
"A nice cup of coffee and a game of Trivial Pursuit," said Sean.  
  
"Oh, _no_," groaned Luke.  
  
Sean looked at him. "What's the matter? Surely you're not afraid of losing to your old uncle, are you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Oh? And what makes you so sure I'll win?"  
  
"Because you _always_ win," Luke replied, exasperated. "I think you cheat. You went and memorized all the little cards."  
  
"I did not! I am simply older and ever so much wiser than you," Sean told him firmly. "Toria! Would you like to play? It's been ages since we were able to talk Kyle into it, and it's no fun with just two."  
  
A board game did sound fun. Toria and her mother had used to play Sorry or Mousetrap on rainy afternoons if they were both home. "Yes, please," she said.  
  
"There!" Sean nodded at his nephew. "You see? Two against one!"  
  
Luke groaned.  
  
"Um... if Luke doesn't want to..." said Toria.  
  
"Luke wants to," Sean assured her. "He just won't admit it. But he'll beat me one of these days, I'm sure. I will go brave the dust rabbits and see if I can find the game." He began to stand up.  
  
"I can do it," Toria offered.  
  
This time, however, Sean put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her. The physical contact made her shiver – amazing. She was already getting used to the idea of this curse – but he was only touching her through the fabric of her pajamas.  
  
"No," he told her, "you've done enough tonight. I will start the coffee and find the game board. You're still sick and you cooked us a wonderful dinner, so I want you to just sit down and relax. In fact, I'll take those, too." He reached for the plates she was holding.  
  
"But..." she began, as he gently but firmly took him out of her hands. She'd made the dinner. She'd dirtied the plates, so shouldn't she have to tidy up and wash them?  
  
"No buts. Sit! Good girl!" Sean smiled kindly. "You're supposed to be a guest, remember? It ought to be us waiting on you. Just sit, and I'll be right back."  
  
Toria obediently sat, but her cheeks felt as if they were burning as Sean left the room. These people should not be doing things for _her_... she was the one who'd come into their house, interrupted their life, learned their secret, and inconvenienced them. It felt wrong for her to be the one sitting down.  
  
Sitting also left her with nothing to do with her hands. She looked at what was left on the tabletop, then selected a napkin and began fiddling with it. Luke, on her right, sat watching – either he was bored enough that it looked interesting, or else he was simply staring into space and she happened to be in his way.  
  
"You're a good cook," he said.  
  
"Thank you," she replied. "I really do like cooking. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to make for you tomorrow?"  
  
"Not really," he said. "As long as it's not meat loaf. Uncle Sean tried making meat loaf a few days ago, and I will never, ever be able to eat the stuff again."  
  
Toria giggled. "All right," she promised. "No meat loaf."  
  
"No meat loaf," Luke agreed. He swallowed. "Listen... at lunch today, I'm sorry if I scared you. I wasn't trying to... I mean, not _just_ to scare you. I really didn't think he'd be okay with you staying here. For any reason."  
  
"That's all right," she assured him. "If something like that's going to happen, it's better if I'm warned, isn't it? Even if it's not very likely."  
  
Luke looked surprised for a moment, and then admiring... which made Toria feel _very_ uncomfortable. "Doesn't anything ever bother you?" he asked.  
  
She shrugged. "Mom always said things can only bother you if you let them. So I try not to let them."  
  
"You do a good job," he said. "I wish I could do that. Nobody's ever just not let this bother them before."  
  
He was talking about the curse. Toria wasn't sure what to say. "I guess there has to be a first time for everything."  
  
"Here we go!" said Sean loudly, startling them both as he re-entered the room carrying the Trivial Pursuit box. "Wonder of wonders – it was exactly where I expected it to be! How often does that happen around here?" He set it down on the table and took the lid off. "Why don't you two choose your colours, and I'll go get the coffee on."  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to?" asked Toria.  
  
"Quite sure." Sean paused, cocking his head in a very doglike fashion as he studied her. "You certainly are eager to help out around here, aren't you? You said you liked cooking?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Mm-hm," he said. "And you're in need of a job?"  
  
"Yes, sir." Toria's throat tightened – was he about to say what she thought he was?  
  
"Well, as I believe I mentioned, we're in need of a housekeeper," said Sean. "Do you think you can cook and do laundry for us three slobs for, say, fifty dollars a day? Plus room and board, of course – no point in making you live elsewhere when we've got a spare room. What do you say?" He paused. "Toria, dear, your mouth is open."  
  
She shut it quickly. "Really?" she asked. "You want to hire me?"  
  
"I told you," said Sean, "I want to keep your cooking. Now, what do you think?"  
  
"I..." Toria began, but Luke interrupted her.  
  
"Shouldn't we wait until after she's well, and talk about this then?" he asked. "I mean, she can't really work here until she's feeling better anyway, can she?" He gave his uncle an evil look.  
  
Sean nodded slowly. "I suppose you're right," he said. "Very well, Toria, you may defer your decision until the bottom of that bottle of antibiotics, which come to think of it I believe you're due for another dose of. So you go take your medicine, I will make coffee, and Luke can set up the game board. Let's hop to it, kids."  
  
That arrangement finally seemed to satisfy everybody. Luke reached across the table for the box and began taking things out of it, while Sean headed back into the kitchen to fill the coffee maker. Toria followed the older man, and took her yellow bottle of medicine out of the refrigerator. The lable on the bottle instructed the dosee to shake it first, so she did... it made a most unappetizing 'slop, slop' noise that somehow matched its taste perfectly.  
  
Behind her, containers clunked as Sean made coffee, and in the dining room she could hear the almost musical clicking of the game pieces as Luke sorted them, but there was another source of noise on top of all that. Curious, Toria swallowed her spoonful of medicine and then peeked around the corner into the living room to look.  
  
Kyle was lying on the floor, watching some cartoon and working his way through a large helping of lasagna he must have stolen from the pan while Sean, Luke, and Toria discussed shopping and board games. When he realized she was there, he paused with his fork halfway to his mouth and turned to glare at her. "What do you want?"  
  
"Sorry," Toria started to back away, then hesitated. "You know that's vegetarian, right?"  
  
"Go away," said Kyle, returning his attention to the TV.  
  
"Sorry," she repeated, and quickly turned away. 


	18. Volume 2: Page 9

Author's Note: Finished Volume II... and that's it. I have ideas for how I'd do the rest of it, but I don't think I could keep this up that long without you guys _and_ me getting thoroughly fed up. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

* * *

**VOLUME 2:** _Page 9 - Feels Like Home_  
  
Despite Luke's complaining that his uncle always won, it became apparent very quickly that _both_ of them were very, very good at Trivial Pursuit. Toria, who had never played the game before, only managed to earn two 'pie' pieces in the time it took for Sean and Luke to get all six and make their way back to the centre of the board... where they then spent a good fifteen minutes trying to give each other the most difficult questions they could.  
  
"Another 'Arts and Culture' question, please, Toria," said Sean, as Luke got his piece into the centre again.  
  
Luke sat with his arms folded on the table as she pulled the card out of the box. His shoulders were forward and his face tensed – he looked ready for far worse things than a trivia question.  
  
"Oh," said Toria, "this is okay, this is an easy one. It says, 'in Edgar Rice Burrough's _Tarzan_ books, what was Jane's maiden name?'"  
  
Luke frowned, furrowing his forehead as he tried to remember. "Oh, crap," he muttered. "Give me a minute... I _know_ it. I'd recognize it if I heard it."  
  
"Well, are you going to answer?" asked Sean.  
  
"I'm thinking," Luke told him.  
  
A couple of seconds passed in silence, then Sean leaned back to look at the ceiling and started humming the 'Jeopardy' song.  
  
"_Don't_ do that," groaned Luke.  
  
"I think you're out of time," said Sean. "You can't take forever to answer, or we could take a week at these games. Now what is it?"  
  
"I'm _thinking_," Luke repeated, but soon he was forced to give up. "I don't know... Goodall?"  
  
Sean slapped his knee and laughed out loud, while Toria, though she knew the answer, checked the back of the card anyway. "It's Porter," she said.  
  
"Porter!" Luke echoed, smacking himself with the heel of his hand. "Of course."  
  
"_Goodall_!" Sean gasped through spasms of giggles. "Jane _Goodall_!"  
  
"It's not _that_ funny," said Luke. "Toria, give him a 'Wildcard' question."  
  
She pulled another card out of the box. "It says," she read, "'which city was the capital of China during the Han Dynasty? Was it (a) Beijing, (b) Shanghai, or (c) Nanking?'"  
  
"Argh!" Luke let himself fall face-first against the table. His forehead hit the wood with an audible 'clunk'.  
  
Sean grinned. "That would be Nanking," he said cheerfully, "and I win again. Excellent game, Luke."  
  
"How do you always manage to get the easy questions?" Luke demanded, sitting up again and rubbing his forehead. "Do you rig the boxes, or what?"  
  
"Nope," said Sean. "Believe me, I'm just as mystified as to how you manage to forget the answers to the easy questions."  
  
Luke scowled. "So am I."  
  
The two men began to pack up the game pieces, and Toria put a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn. "What time is it?" she asked.  
  
Sean checked his watch. "Eight-thirty PM," he said, "but looking at you, I'd say that's late enough. Why don't you head for bed?"  
  
Bed sounded lovely... "but what about the dishes?" asked Toria.  
  
"We have a dishwasher," said Sean, "and despite our Y chromosomes we do know how to use it. Besides, I should say you need sleep a lot more than we need clean dishes. Once you're well, we'll let you clean the entire house for us – how's that for something to look forward to?" He waited a moment for a response, and did not receive one. "I'm _teasing_, Toria."  
  
"I know," she said quickly.  
  
"Good. Now go to bed. That is an order, Miss Henderson. We will take care of the dishes ourselves."  
  
It really didn't seem like she could argue too much with that, and Toria _was_ tired. She shook her head sleepily as she climbed the stairs – what a strange couple of days it had been! Yesterday morning she'd had a job and a place to live... and by evening she'd lost both of them. Then she'd wandered into somebody's backyard without really knowing what she was doing, and now here she was with a job (potentially) and a place to live (temporarily) again.  
  
"I guess you were right, Mom," she said softly. "Once you hit the bottom, there's nowhere to go but up."  
  
The door to 'her' bedroom was open. She reached in and flicked on the light.  
  
"Hey!" exclaimed Kyle.  
  
Toria stared. The room had been dark... she hadn't expected to find anybody in it. But there was Kyle, standing on the end of the bed, leaning forward awkwardly to support his weight against the wall as he put up a set of Venetian blinds on the window. He was blinking rapidly in the sudden light.  
  
"What are you doing?" asked Toria, too startled to be polite.  
  
"Putting up blinds," he replied testily, around two screws he was holding between his teeth. "What's it look like I'm doing?" He took a screwdriver down from the top of the bookshelf and resumed what he must have been doing before Toria turned the light on; making sure the blinds were level above the window frame.  
  
"In the dark?" she asked.  
  
"I'm fine." He took one of the screws out of his mouth and started twisting it into place. "Sean left me a list of shit he said I had to do today if I wasn't going to school," he added. "This was one of the things."  
  
"I see." Toria nodded. He wanted her to know he was doing this because he had to, not because he wanted to make her more comfortable. "Did you like the lasagna?" she wanted to know.  
  
"Mmmph." The noise could have been positive, negative, or indifferent. Kyle stuck the second screw into its hole.  
  
In the absence of anything to go by, Toria decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a 'yes'. "There're brownies, too, if you want some."  
  
"I had one."  
  
"Okay. Three more of them are yours," she said.  
  
"I'll keep that in mind," Kyle promised. With the screws in place, he gave the blind a good shake to make sure it was attached firmly, then yanked the string to drop the slats over the window. "There," he said, straightening up and then hopping down from the bed. "Now it won't get so hot in here tomorrow."  
  
"Thank you," said Toria.  
  
"And next time," he added, "just fuc... _warn_ me if you're going to turn on the light."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
He grabbed his screwdriver and the long cardboard box the blinds had come in, and walked past Toria without saying anything. She turned around to close the door behind him, but he stopped in the doorway and waited a moment.  
  
"Was there something else?" she wanted to know.  
  
Kyle stood there a moment longer. "Toria, right?" he asked, without turning around.  
  
"Victoria Henderson," she agreed. "My middle name is Elizabeth if you want to know. Mom named me after Queens of England. You're Kyle. You're in my math class." At least, he was when he showed up.  
  
"John Kyle Somers." He waited a bit longer, twirling the screwdriver between two fingers as if it were a baton or a drumstick, then added, "look. Since I guess you're going to be here a while whether I like it or not, I thought... about this morning. I..." he shook his head. "I've got some issues, okay? _Everybody_ in this family has issues, but I just... I tend to kind of spazz out about things. It's not personal. All right?"  
  
Was he apologizing? Maybe he didn't hate her after all. Toria smiled. "It's fine," she assured him. "I guess it must've been a bit of a shock to find me here."  
  
"Yeah," said Kyle. "It was. Don't think we're gonna be best friends or anything," he added, finally turning to face her, "because we're not. I still think this is a bad idea. You'd better keep the secret, all right?"  
  
"Right," Toria nodded, and noticed that Kyle wasn't wearing his sunglasses... and it was, she realized, no wonder he wore them at school. His eyes were bright yellow-green, with a darker green rim around the pupils. Eyes like that ought to look at you from behind glass in a pet store, not out of a human face.  
  
"Right," Kyle echoed. "Good night."  
  
"Good night," said Toria, and he turned and walked away.  
  
She shut the door softly behind him and climbed into bed, pulling the warm covers up to her chin. Despite knowing that she should not get too attached to this place, it already felt more like a home than anywhere had in months.  
  
"Goodnight, Mom," she said to the photograph on the bedside table. And although it, of course, could not answer, somehow Toria knew that right here was exactly where her mother would have wanted her to be. 


End file.
